Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Mr Speaker, can I say that it’s an honour to be able to speak on the Prime Minister’s statement. And can I start by acknowledging our Prime Minister and the leadership that she has demonstrated over the last two and a bit years. She started out her statement laying out what the context was when we came into Government—what we inherited from the previous Government. Then she launched into what we have done since we’ve been in Government, what we are doing now, and she talked about the fact—very openly—that there is much more that we want to do and that we’re committed to doing that. So I want to acknowledge the great leadership that we have in our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

Also, I want to acknowledge our wonderful coalition partner, New Zealand First, and our wonderful confidence and supply partner, the Green Party, because together we have been able to make a difference over the last two years, and together we will be able to do a lot more over the course of this year. When we came into Government, we inherited a mess; let’s be honest. We had had nine years of a National Government who had ignored the fact that we had a housing crisis. We’d had nine years of a National Government who had ignored multiple social issues, which had led us to quite a dark place—as our Prime Minister said. We’d had nine years of a National Government who had not invested in infrastructure. And what we were seeing when we got in were rundown hospitals, rundown schools, and roads that hadn’t been built.

We were left to pick up the pieces. I’m very proud of the job that we have done to date. We’ve made investments in mental health so people can get the help that they need at their local GP. We invested $1.9 billion into mental health; and can I say that I was at the University of Auckland the other day at their orientation talking to students about what they think matters to them, and the vast majority of them were pointing to mental health. They appreciate the investment that we on this side of the House have put into mental health. And they recognise, just like many New Zealanders across the country, that for far too long mental health is an area that’s been neglected and it has put us in a very dangerous place as a country.

We’ve provided more addiction treatment, beds, and services. We’ve funded new cancer treatment equipment like radiation machines and new cancer drugs. We’ve started to clean up our rivers by supporting farmers to fence their waterways and plant trees. We’ve increased school funding so that many parents don’t have to pay school donations or NCEA fees. And can I say that’s made a difference to low-decile schools—low-decile schools who weren’t able to collect donations from parents anyway, because those parents were not able to afford to pay those fees. So those low-decile schools now have money that they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to, and the feedback I get from mine is incredibly positive.

We’ve supported businesses to invest in innovation and diversification. We’ve invested in trade training—another area that was neglected by the previous Government. We’ve banned offshore speculators and stopped the sell-off of State homes, which was one of our biggest issues. We had a housing crisis when we came into Government. They, irresponsibly, rather than building more public housing were selling off our State houses. We put a stop to that. We set a target for an additional 1,600 public houses a year. We’ve exceeded that to date; in fact, we’ve built over 4,000 already.

We passed the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. And can I say again, we cannot underestimate how important climate change is to young people in New Zealand. Mental health and climate change—the two areas when I was at the University of Auckland the other day that all of them were indicating were of most importance to them, and it should be.

We’ve also deployed over 2,000 new cops across the country—

💬 Hon Member: How many?

—over 2,000 new cops—to keep communities safer.

We can see also that our economy is in good shape. Our unemployment is now down to 4 percent. It’s lower now than it ever was under the previous Government. We’ve had the highest annual wage growth in a decade. The minimum wage on 1 April will go up again. This time it goes up to $18.90, with a view to make sure that we get to $20 by next year, and I think that this side of the House can be proud of that. The economy is growing faster than most similar countries. Over the next two years, we’re projected to grow faster than Australia—[Interruption]—Canada, the US, the UK, the EU, Norway, Japan, and Singapore, and I think David Bennett’s yelling out some more countries in support of what we’re doing. Interest rates, debt, and unemployment are all low, and on top of that—and we give some kudos to our finance Minister, Grant Robertson, for this—our books are balanced—they are balanced. We even started, in amidst all of that, contributions to the super fund—restarted contributions to the super fund—and we’re reducing the debt. That all is in stark contrast to what the previous National Government had to offer this country.

One of my primary areas of focus is, of course, the welfare overhaul, and I acknowledge the Green Party, our confidence and supply partners, for putting it into our agreement when we came into Government, and we are all committed to that welfare overhaul. We know it won’t happen overnight, because there’s so much to fix up within our social security system. However, we’re committed to doing it, and I wanted to talk a little bit about the things that have already been done. There were 42 recommendations in that Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) report, and I’m going to rattle through, really quickly in the next three minutes, what work has already been done or how we’ve responded to those recommendations. I’m going to talk really quickly.

In response to WEAG recommendation 2, which is to implement principles to guide the design and operation of the welfare system, we’ve developed a working policy framework to guide the welfare overhaul, which includes kaupapa Māori values, the purpose of the welfare system as a whole, and the outcomes we want to see. In response to recommendation 3, to establish a cross-Government approach to this welfare overhaul, our Social Wellbeing Cabinet Committee is already overseeing this work. In response to recommendation 5, to implement better reporting, we are regularly monitoring the longer-term employment outcomes of people leaving the benefit system. In fact, we’ve already started to record sustainability of employment exits, which is what the previous Government completely ignored. In response to recommendation 6 and recommendation 9, to work toward greater equity for Māori, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has launched its Te Ao Māori strategy and action plan, Te Pae Tata, which is about embedding a Māori world view into MSD to help staff think differently about the way they work with Māori—because, let’s be honest, the welfare system has not worked for Māori in this country for a very long time.

In response to recommendation 8, to build MSD’s cultural responsiveness and improve outcomes for Pacific people, MSD has launched their Pacific strategy and action plan, Pacific Prosperity, to guide future policy development in delivering better coordinated action together. In response to recommendation 11, to remove some sanctions and obligations, we have already removed the section 192 sanction, which will come into effect on 1 April, which unnecessarily penalised sole parents. As of 1 April 2020, 24,000 children will be significantly better off as a result of this, with many sole parents’ incomes increasing by an average of $34 per week. In response to recommendation 12, to improve front-line services at MSD, we’ve introduced a client commitment charter, made changes to Work and Income offices to make them warmer and friendlier, implemented an online eligibility guide, and launched Heartbeat to better understand client experiences.

In response to recommendations 14, 15, and 16, to address issues of debt, we have started an inter-agency work programme to look at Government debt, developed the Safer Credit and Financial Inclusion Strategy, and my colleague Minister Faafoi has announced new rules around high-cost short-term lending to protect consumers from punishing debt at the hands of loan sharks. In response to recommendation 18, to improve support for people exiting prisons, we announced Māori Pathways, a group of targeted interventions from the Department of Corrections, Te Puni Kōkiri, and the Ministry of Social Development, aimed at reducing reoffending rates of high security prisoners. And in response to recommendation 20, to increase abatement rates, we have increased how much people can earn before their benefit is reduced, in line with the minimum wage, and that comes into effect on 1 April.

I only got up to recommendation 20. There are 42 in here. This Government is about action and we’re delivering for New Zealanders.

Facebook memories reminded me this morning that today marks nine years since I was first elected to Parliament. I certainly never expected nine years ago that I would be the centre of a debate over foreign political donations, and I’m using that term deliberately. Foreign political donations and foreign interference is what I want to focus my time on here.

In the Prime Minister’s statement, that we are debating, the Prime Minister lists as one of her Government’s achievements the banning of foreign political donations. It’s true that the new $50 threshold for overseas donations is an improvement. But, as I’ve said previously in the House, I doubt it will do very much to deter those determined to find other ways around the ban, including—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Mr Jackson, leave the House.

—using the wide open gap we still have where foreign State actors can funnel funds through New Zealand registered companies.

The foreign donation ban is one of the few recommendations that has spun out of the Justice Committee’s inquiry into foreign interference activities in New Zealand elections that has been picked up. Probably the most important submissions that we received through that inquiry were those from Professor Anne-Marie Brady of Canterbury University and what we heard from the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) director, Rebecca Kitteridge. It was all eye-watering and eye-opening stuff and sobering for us to hear and read their evidence. We have not, and I think we still do not, take seriously enough the risk of foreign interference activities that we’ve been subjected to as a country. Ms Kitteridge rightly pointed out in her evidence that the challenge of foreign interference to our democracy is not just about what occurs around the election itself. Motivated State actors will work assiduously over many years, including in New Zealand, to covertly garner influence, access, and leverage.

She also specifically pointed out the risks we face from foreign State actors through the exertion of pressure or control of diaspora communities and the building of covert influence and leverage, including through electoral financing. After Pansy Wong resigned from Parliament, I was selected as the National Party candidate for the 5 March by-election nine years ago. It was made very clear to me at the time that I had to put a big emphasis on getting to know the Chinese community. It was also pointed out to me very early on that I must make good connections with the Chinese consul-general. Madam Liao at the time was very influential with Chinese New Zealanders and important to my own success as well. In hindsight, it was naive of me to not think carefully about the pull that a foreign diplomat had on a large section of the population in my electorate.

The consul-general in Auckland is treated like a God, more so than any New Zealand politician, except probably the Prime Minister of the day. Each successive consul-general seemed to be better and more effective at holding New Zealand residents and citizens of Chinese descent in their grasp. Consul-generals Niu Qingbao and Xu Erwen were also treating us, as MPs—not just myself, others—as long-lost friends. All this effort, if you read Professor Brady’s paper called Magic Weapons, is a core plank of the Chinese Communist Party’s deliberate and targeted efforts to expand political influence activities worldwide. It’s also the very risk that Rebecca Kitteridge warned the Justice Committee about. Professor Brady’s paper is a 50-page academic work. I can’t do it justice here, but I recommend all MPs read it.

The activities of the Chinese Communist Party here domestically, where Chinese New Zealanders have been targeted, should be concerning enough for all of us. But the efforts that Chinese Communist Party - connected individuals have been making over the years to target us as politicians, and New Zealand political parties, also needs to be taken seriously. Every time we as MPs are showered with praise or dinners or hospitality by Chinese diplomats, we’re being subjected to what Professor Brady calls “united front work”. Every time we see our constituents bow and scrape to foreign diplomats, it’s a result of their long-running efforts to exert influence and control over our fellow Kiwis.

Both Professor Brady and Director Kitteridge have warned about the risk of foreign interference activity where funding of political parties is used as a tool. This isn’t necessarily unlawful provided the donations meet the requirements of the Electoral Act. In 2018, I very publicly made some allegations relating to donations. I have said publicly already that the donations I called out were offered directly to the leader of the National Party at an event I was not in attendance at. I did not know at the time that those donations were made that they were in any way unlawful. I never had any control over those donations and I have never been a signatory of any National Party bank account in the time that I’ve been an MP. I never benefited personally from those donations. I was never a part of any conspiracy to defeat the Electoral Act. And the point at which I blew the whistle on these donations—first internally, then very publicly—that point came after I learnt of new information that led me to question the legality of the donations.

After raising these issues publicly, they were duly investigated first by the police and then the Serious Fraud Office. The result of those allegations is already public and I can’t traverse much detail here, but I will say that I refuse to be silenced and I will keep speaking out about what I know, and have seen, goes on inside political parties. I refuse to be quiet about the corroding influence of money in New Zealand politics.

Last year, I learnt, off the back of concerns I myself took to the proper authorities, that the National Party had been the beneficiary of large amounts of foreign donations. These donations are linked back to China and linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and with ease entered New Zealand. I didn’t go searching for this information. I was asked if I knew anything of the origins of the donations. I didn’t know. It was all new information to me, and I was surprised by what I learnt.

What I learnt was that large sums of money adding up to around $150,000 coming directly out of China in Chinese yuan over successive years ended up as political party donations. Two individuals, Shaoli Xie and Shaona Zhang, were used as conduits for the donations.

These funds eventually made their way to the New Zealand National Party. The New Zealand National Party still holds those funds. The National Party is still holding at least $150,000 of foreign donations received in two successive years. I call on the National Party to return those foreign donations that it holds or transfer the money to the Electoral Commission. I doubt the National Party knew at the time that the money was foreign—I certainly didn’t either—but now that they will have that information to hand, they need to show leadership and do the right thing.

To avoid doubt, this $150,000 dollars’ worth of foreign donations is not the same as the $150,000 from the Inner Mongolia Rider Horse Industry company that they raised last year.

The warnings sounded from academics and spy agencies are not without reason. These two examples I give are very real examples of foreign money that has entered New Zealand politics. Professor Brady, with reference to the list of overseas members of the overseas Chinese federation, which is part of the Communist Party’s infrastructure, listed three top united front representatives in New Zealand: Che Weixing, Gan Kaiwan, and Zhang Yikun. All three are well known to political parties.

In a recent press statement from a PR agency, representatives of Zhang Yikun highlighted the philanthropic approach that he takes in New Zealand. The press statement on 19 February specifically said that he has been “donating to many political parties and campaigns.”, except his name has never appeared in any political party return. When asked by the media if political parties had any record of donations from this individual, all said no. But a quick search online will find dozens and dozens of photos of Zhang Yikun dining with mayors and MPs over the time, inviting them to his home, and his recent 20th convention of Teochew International Federation had a who’s who list of politicians turning up, including a former Prime Minister.

The foreign donations I mentioned earlier all have connections to the Chao Shan General Association. The founder and chairman of Chao Shan General Association is Zhang Yikun. To summarise these two bits of information, the largest party in this Parliament has been the beneficiary of large sums of foreign money. That money is linked to an individual who is listed as one of the top three Chinese Communist Party united front representatives in New Zealand. That individual’s PR agents say he has donated to many political parties and campaigns, yet he’s never shown up in any donation returns in the past.

One of Professor Brady’s concluding remarks in her submission to the Justice Committee was that foreign interference activities can only thrive if public opinion in the affected nation tolerates or condones it. We must not tolerate or condone any foreign interference activities. We must also not stay silent when we see problems right under our nose. It’s time for the political parties in this Parliament to address seriously the political party donation regime that we have.

I realise that both the two main parties in this Parliament often have to agree, but perhaps it’s time to put that out to an independent body. It’s too important for us to ignore, and it’s not right that we should allow these things to go on under our nose.

I seek leave to table two charts that show a flow of money from China into New Zealand and to the New Zealand National Party.

💬 SPEAKER: I seek an assurance from the member that these charts are not integral to any matter currently before the courts.

These charts have been prepared by the Serious Fraud Office and I cannot give you that assurance.

💬 SPEAKER: You cannot give me that assurance. Well, I’m not going to put the question.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The sub judice rule is not as to the fact; it’s as to the argument of the merit of the case, and I think a far too rigid rule is being applied here. If a flow chart, without any other comment, is to be ruled out from being tabled because you say it is sub judice—it is not arguing anything but the fact. It is not arguing for the merits, it’s not taking sides, it’s not trying to be persuasive, and I think it should be allowed in.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his comments. This is clearly a matter on which I’ve thought long and hard. I think in the last Standing Orders review or possibly the one before that, the sub judice rules were significantly tightened. I think it’s fair to say that those changes were not unanimous. There was one member who stood out against the tightening of those rules, and it was me. But having said that, as Speaker, I am obliged to apply the rules as they exist, and the member has not been able to give me an assurance that the information contained in the chart is not central to a case currently before the court.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. The problem with that is you’ve got a serious legal concept that’s been handed down through the decades, indeed the centuries, now being interpreted by parliamentarians as though they are a court of law in this context. The sub judice rule applies to any court of law—any document associated with a court of law—across our legal jurisdiction. But no parliamentarian should be given—sorry, I’m not making an attack on the parliamentarians, but I think it’s improper for parliamentarians to say, “Well, we’ve got a better interpretation of that, and this is what it is.”

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I think, for me, the question is how Mr Ross came to hold the documents: whether in fact he is holding the documents because of his involvement in a case that may be before a judicial body, or whether he came to hold them through some other means.

💬 SPEAKER: Well, I think I’m able to deal with that question on the matter of the briefings that I have received. Jami-Lee Ross has made it clear to me that the chart to which he refers or the information to which he refers is something which has come into his possession as a matter leading up to this and containing information relevant to this case.

💬 Hon Aupito William Sio: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Noting the seriousness and the magnitude of the issues that have been raised with Mr Jami-Lee Ross, and noting also that his time is up, is it appropriate for me to seek leave that he be given extended time to complete his statements?

The answer to that is that it’s not appropriate for that member to seek leave for another member in that way.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to stand in support of the motion moved by the Hon Simon Bridges, who said that we don’t have any confidence in this Government, particularly the Prime Minister. As we have seen, in the year 2019, this Prime Minister mentioned that this will be the year of delivery, but what we saw was that nothing was delivered. This was going to be the most transparent and open Government, which is totally opposite to that. We have asked so many things in this House, but they always duck and dive to avoid reasonable questions.

First of all, the previous speaker, Jami-Lee Ross, mentioned about the foreign interference and the donations. If we look at the whole scenario, before we go out and talk about the foreign donations, why don’t we talk about the donations given in this country and the influence they are trying to make? I am talking about the New Zealand First Foundation. The Deputy Prime Minister was talking about and supporting the previous speaker—that he should be able to put up that flow chart. I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister to put up a flow chart of how the money got into the New Zealand First Foundation and then was given to New Zealand First for campaigning. That is a reasonable question which needs to be answered, rather than talking about what foreign influence is doing.

I was really pleased to see that the Deputy Prime Minister, in the last two days, had been talking about the Indian Weekender. I think the last time he read the Indian Weekender was February 2017. He keeps on quoting me, what I said in that news item. In that news item, I stood for the people who were vulnerable. I stood for them, and I was able to say that we should name and shame those people who are abusing the system. But what the Deputy Prime Minister is doing is he is hiding his own Cabinet colleague behind him. He should read what the Indian Weekender has said yesterday and today. I have got those cuttings, and I would like to quote from the headline from that news item from the Indian Weekender. It says, “Winston Peters’ defence of Shane Jones’ racist comments reflects sickening ‘victim-blaming’ mindset”. That is what the headline is saying. So I would recommend the Deputy Prime Minister to go and read the latest version online of the Indian Weekender, a very good newspaper which fights for the rights of the people.

Another item which has come up today on the Indian Weekender is the comments by the community leaders. They are criticising not only the Hon Shane Jones but particularly the Prime Minister—that she is not standing up for the rights of the Indian people, and she is not able to reprimand the Hon Shane Jones, who has been making comments not once but many times, which is hurting the Indian community. I assure you that whenever the Prime Minister is going to front up to the Indian community, they are going to challenge her and ask her.

We saw that the Deputy Prime Minister was in India, advocating for more students, more trade between India and New Zealand. On the contrary, the Minister over here, the Hon Shane Jones, was criticising the Indian community, which is contributing not only to the New Zealand economy but the students are also contributing. The comment he made on the television was that the students coming from India are harming the institutes over here. It is on the other hand: the institutes which are not able to provide good education to those students—they are being hurt. That is the problem, not the students.

We also know that in the year of delivery—we have asked so many questions in the past, particularly starting from KiwiBuild, more taxes, higher rents, the delay in the visas. We were in India about two months ago, where I asked the Mumbai branch of—[Time expired]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure for me to get up and speak on this bill and to support the motion that was put on the Table by our leader, the Hon Simon Bridges, of having no confidence in the Prime Minister’s statement at all.

I just want to cover off, in the short time that I have, a couple of areas within non-delivery of this Government. One of those key areas for me that I have a big concern about is children. This Government has failed children. It promised that it would reduce child poverty and lift children out of poverty by 30,000 children. This Government has not done that. They have failed in their delivery to children. They have failed in the fact that 11,000 more children—

💬 Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: How many?

—11,000 more children—are in hardship families; 15,000 additional children are in benefit-dependent households. That is failing children in Aotearoa New Zealand.

If the other side, if the Government benches, think that that is wrong, just look at the comment made by the city missions, who said that children under this Government have been poorly served. They did better, under the reduction of child poverty, under—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Rubbish.

—a National-led Government. Don’t say “Rubbish.” when it came from the city missions, that actually made that comment.

The other area I want to talk about is the cost of living, because that is impacting on child poverty—the cost of living around the prices of fuel, the increase of fuel taxes, which is limiting the ability for families to actually get to their jobs because the cost of fuel is just absolutely hammering them and taking every last piece of extra dollars that they have, because this Government’s got greedy. This Government’s got greedy. Food prices have shot up. How can people that are on low incomes survive under this Government? They cannot.

💬 Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Go to the grocery store and see for yourself.

That’s right. Go to a grocery store and look at how much food prices have gained under the leadership of this Government.

To actually offer beneficiaries, as a trial, My Food Bag parcels, I believe is an insult. Why don’t you just put the money into the beneficiaries, into low-income families, and into increased benefits? Because under a National-led Government, in 2015 we did that—the first time in 43 years that a Government has raised benefits, and it was this side of the House that did that in 2015. So when it comes to who cares most about those on low incomes, to make sure that we look after them and that we respond to them, it is this side of the House. It is the National side of the House that does that. And many people on the other side, on the Government benches, can sit there and have a little chuckle, but the evidence is out there—it is on the streets. People are struggling to survive.

Now, my last point that I want to cover off is Whānau Ora. It would be terrible of me if I didn’t mention Whānau Ora and the shambles that has happened to Whānau Ora commissioning agencies over the last 12 months. The 2019 Budget, everybody celebrated—“Yay, $80 million across four years for Whānau Ora commissioning.” Well, guess what? The Minister never told the commissioning agencies exactly how that fund was going to be split up. So you can imagine the shock that the commissioning agencies felt when they found out that they’d be getting less than 50 percent of that $80 million—less than that; the Minister never told them. Money that went to Government agencies—Government agencies are already funded. They should look into their own budgets and actually sort out how they are going to respond to Māori whānau.

Also around individual commissioning, who knew about that? Only the Minister. That is why Dame Tariana Turia, Dame Iritana Tāwhiwhirangi, Dame Naida Glavish, Lady Tureiti Moxon, and Merepeka Raukawa-Tait have been and met with the Minister, have met with the Prime Minister, and are taking a Waitangi Tribunal claim against this Government for the treatment of Whānau Ora, not only the commissioning agencies but whānau that are actually served under those organisations, under Māori providers. It is shameful—this is not a Government that has delivered. They have failed to deliver for those that are in need of support, and the economy is reeling from it.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. So negative—it’s so negative. Now, let me tell you about what delivery looks like. Let me give a little bit of background. So 2017 was an interesting election in terms of law and order, because instead of the parties going on about who could be hardest on crime, it was actually about who could deliver more police in our communities—it was quite proactive, it was pretty good. So it started with the then National Government. They said they would deliver 880 police over four years. Then Labour came along and said, “No, we can up that. We’ll deliver a thousand police over three years.” But let’s give credit where credit’s due: thanks to New Zealand First and this coalition Government we got really aspirational around police. We said 1,800 police over three years—1,800 police over three years.

Now, let me give the House a little bit of a background to how we got here. Minister Ron Mark and I used to go on about this a lot in Opposition. So there was a workplace survey—every two years, the police fill in a workplace survey—and it captures the mood and the feeling and what’s going on in police. In that 2017 workplace survey, only 40 percent of respondents—40 percent—said they were delivering on the promises they made to our communities. Sixty percent of officers said they weren’t delivering. Also, 60 percent of officers said they had an undue level of workplace stress. But on the opposite side, you had over 80 percent of respondents say that they were committed to the communities they serve and committed to the New Zealand police service.

So what you had was a group of really good men and women who knew what needed to be done but just didn’t have the resources to do it. So we decided, “We’ve got to change this around.”, because I completely back the men and women who put their lives on the line 24/7 to keep us safe. And I will admit it does disappoint me every time I hear politicians criticise police—because police can’t speak back and police will be there straight away if they’re in trouble. So what we did is we started putting police into the community. Remember the Nats wanted 880? We did that in two years. They wanted to do it in four years; we did it in two years.

The last graduating wing—the last wing—which was last week, represented 2,000 more police that are now out in our communities, keeping us safe, fighting drug harm, and preventing crime. That is an astounding figure. And I have been to every single one of these graduations except one—so to 29 graduations—and I have seen the profile of the men and women who are entering our police service, and it is outstandingly good. Men and women who have got qualifications, who have represented their province and our country in sport and culture, and the average age—so people tend to think of young grads, “Oh, they’re just out of school.” Very rarely is there an 18-year-old there. The average age, I would say, would be mid-20s, early 30s. So they bring in a whole lot of life experience as well. And they are keen. They are really making a difference.

But how did we end up here—how did we end up here? According to Jarrod Gilbert, who is a criminologist at University of Canterbury, the Australian gangs arrived in New Zealand about 2008. By 2011, they were well established, and the Rebels were the gangs that arrived first—well established. After that became known—2011—police numbers dropped by 150. In the last five years of the previous Government, police numbers actually dropped, and during that time, the gangs became sophisticated, they became organised, they became violent, and they were transnational, primarily driven by the 501s—these are the returning deportees from Australia. As a consequence of that, our ethnic gangs started patching up. And so what we’re seeing at the moment is the Mongrel Mob—predominately the Mongrel Mob—but the Black Power patching up in a way they have never done before, and the Australian gangs going really hard. So we have a dynamic here which is not good at all.

But, again, according to Jarrod Gilbert—so don’t believe me, but this is true—the police do a really good job of policing. They do a fantastic job of preventing crime and solving crime. But what we need is an all-of-Government approach, and that is what this Government is taking: an all-of-Government approach. Police are leading it because they see the hard side, they see the hard edge of crime every single day. But we’ve got education, we’ve got housing, we’ve got Oranga Tamariki, we’ve got Work and Income New Zealand, we’ve got a whole lot of agencies coming together to say, “How do we solve this? How do we work together to create safer communities?”

But we also understand that we’ve got to go after the bad guys. We’ve got to make sure that we take down these gangs. So we’re taking a slightly different approach. As well as, you know, dealing with the yobbos on the ground who are antisocial and do terrible things to their women and you see on the news, we’re going after the money—we’re going after the money. In fact, last year, 2019, police seized over $100 million in assets and cash associated with the proceeds of crime. It’s not just the men with the patches on the back—they may be the public face of what we see and they may be what the news media like to focus on—but it’s also your lawyers, it’s also your accountants; the white-collar crime. These people are just as insidious and just as bad as the guys with the patches on their back.

In fact, not last Monday but the Monday before, the police made an announcement—and we backed them up—that they’d arrested 10 people who they believe are responsible for importing over a tonne of drugs into this country in the last three years. Not one of them was a gang member, but the harm that they created to our communities was immense. So this is police working with Customs to fight drug crime.

What we’ve seen so far, according to our waste-water testing, is that meth usage has dropped by 17 percent. Our seizures last year were 1.6 tonnes of meth. Now, you can’t do that with a police force that is stressed and can’t deliver on the promises that they make; you can only do this when you have a well-resourced police service.

Let me give you, again, a local example in my area, Eastern District. So the district commander, a woman called Superintendent Tānia Kura, who I think is absolutely fantastic and gets this, has set up a gang focus unit. She admits that the only way she could set up this gang focus unit is with the extra police she has been given. In the seven months that this gang focus unit has been operational, they’ve made over a hundred arrests, over a hundred charges have been laid, millions of dollars have been seized, and gangs are being stopped.

Now, this isn’t going to happen overnight—it isn’t going to happen overnight. We’ve still got a lot more police to deliver into our districts—a lot more police. But what we have started here—what we have started here—thanks to this coalition Government is a rebuilding of our police service into a body of men and women who have the resources to go incredibly hard against these gangs and against organised crime.

When we turned up here into Government, the police service did not have those resources; they have them now. In fact, the next graduation in March of this year will be the first time in the history of the New Zealand police service where there will be over 10,000 sworn officers—over 10,000 sworn officers.

Now the game is changing. Gangs are becoming more sophisticated. Crime is becoming more complex. But it just didn’t work under the previous Government when they said to the Commissioner of Police, “You must do more with less.” And he drove efficiency. He drove culture change. In fact, the Debbie Francis report on bullying, that’s just come out this week, said that police are about 95 percent there compared to where they were when Dame Margaret Bazley wrote her first report; they’ve got about 5 percent to go. The commissioner is committed to delivering on every single recommendation that Debbie Francis put in her report on police bullying and the culture.

So there’s a little way to go. We know that. There’s a long way to go in terms of getting on top of the gang problem, but we’ve started in a way that, I believe, is really making a difference. It’s not just about going after the men and women; it’s about going after the money.

The other thing I would say, that is really disappointing, is that there is a piece of legislation—the Arms Legislation Bill—before this House, and what it does is say that no gang member will have a firearms licence. The other thing it says is that we are going to significantly increase the penalties for gun crime, because we know this is increasing, as well. For a reason that I just cannot fathom, the National Opposition is not voting for this bill.

💬 Matt Doocey: We’re not the only ones, Mr Mitchell, are we?

We have a chance to work—oh no, you’re right; David Seymour isn’t voting for it either—together to significantly increase penalties for gun crime and to take the guns off gangs and to go really hard against the gangs, but the Nats aren’t supporting it—and I don’t know why, because this is what we all want. In my communities, we want it.

So just to sum up, we have made a fantastic start to rebuilding our New Zealand police service into an organisation that is fighting gangs and gun crime, and keeping our communities safe.

The next call’s a split call. I call Nicola Willis.

Well, that was an apologist speech from a Minister who knows that he is overseeing an explosion in the number of gang members in our country. He can claim that it doesn’t matter if there are more people with patches on the street, that that’s just what the media’s focusing on, and we need to worry about something else. Well, I’ll tell you, if we are walking down the street in Napier and we see a patched gang member—I’ll tell you the effect that has on an everyday person, Stuart—it is intimidating, it is frightening, and it tells us that we’re living in a community where people who snub their noses to the law can get away with it, and we don’t like it.

Here on this side of the House, I accept your argument that, yes, the police have a mandate to arrest them and the police do a good job. I absolutely accept that. The gangs aren’t the police’s fault; the fault lies with the Government who have not given the police the mandate to lock offenders up. In fact, the mandate is actually catch and release. There is an explicit objective from this Government to reduce the number of people in prison. If you think that that’s not having an impact on the way criminals view our society, then you would be wrong. We have to look at this problem and be realistic about the Government’s role in it, and Stuart Nash knows it, and that’s why he spent so long apologising for it in that speech.

But what I want to speak about today is a number of items in the Prime Minister’s statement that made me reflect on the election campaign we had in 2017. In that statement, we had from the Prime Minister a number of commitments for the future. I have to say it’s wearing a little thin with me because I’ve been hearing these commitments for the future for a long time and I am not seeing the delivery here in Wellington.

I want to take you through a really specific example, and that is housing. I stood next to Grant Robertson, the local MP in Wellington Central, in the Aro Valley community debate, and he promised the assembled people—he promised—he said, “We have to bring rents down.” He talked about all the houses that would be built under Labour, he talked about KiwiBuild.

But what have we actually seen in Wellington? We’ve got rents rising the fastest in the country. We now have the most expensive rents in New Zealand, up a hundred dollars a week since this Government was elected. What that means is that there are people in groups of 30 or 40 standing on footpaths, trying to get a flat. It is harder than ever for people to find a home. We have public waiting lists for public housing that have absolutely exploded; hundreds more signing up for a State house, and not getting it. We have emergency housing grants that have blown out. That is a number that represents more families, more individuals, more Wellingtonians forced out of a proper tenancy and forced instead into living in a motel. That’s what’s happening with housing in Wellington. Some people will accept the argument. They’ll say, “Oh well, you know, the Government’s giving it a good go; no one expects perfection.” But I’ll tell you what they do expect: they expect progress, and we have not seen that on housing in Wellington.

National, for our part, is absolutely focused on the future and the policies that will genuinely make a difference in these areas. We know that it’s not simple. We’re actually planning to repeal and replace the Resource Management Act, which lies at the heart of many of New Zealand’s housing difficulties. We are committed to investing in the infrastructure that will enable more housing development.

Those on the other side of the House would do well to do some reading tonight because we have released 10 discussion documents which detail positive, credible plans for the future, and we are talking to New Zealanders about them. When you look at Wellington, whether it’s infrastructure, where we’ve been robbed of key projects like a second Mount Victoria tunnel, and promised—potentially, one day, maybe—light rail, just like Auckland did. They were promised it would be delivered by 2021. It’s 2020, Prime Minister, and the clock’s ticking, and you still haven’t got a contract. Whether it’s health, where targets have been removed and performance on everything from access to cancer treatment to emergency waiting times has slipped back, where there are code reds in our maternity wards, where the midwives still haven’t had their claims addressed, and there are chronic shortages occurring. Whether it’s early childhood, where instead of 100 percent qualified teachers, as we were promised, we have major teacher shortages across the board. This is a Government that promised big, that can’t deliver, that is fundamentally out of its depth. It’s time to put mum and dad back in charge and elect a National-led Government.

Before I call the recently engaged—congratulations—Dan Bidois, could I just really encourage members to not bring the Speaker into the debate, despite the poor leadership that’s been demonstrated by some senior members of the House over recent days? If members could really turn their attention to that, it would be appreciated.

I have no confidence in the Prime Minister’s statement. I have no confidence in this Government. They have failed to deliver for New Zealanders. They are first class at announcements, but third rate at delivery. Finally, this Prime Minister confuses inputs with outcomes.

Let me outline for you a few examples today—that were not mentioned in the Prime Minister’s statement—about how they have failed to deliver. Firstly, on police—we had the Minister of Police just recently—crime is up 25 percent in my neighbourhood.

💬 Sarah Dowie: How much?

25 percent in Northcote in the last two years, since this Government came into office. Gang numbers are up 31 percent, or nearly 1,700, under this Government. Let’s go to housing. Well, need I say anything more than “KiwiBuild”? How many houses were promised to be built in KiwiBuild? I don’t think we’re at nearly the number that they promised. I think in the order of now 20,000, and they’ve probably built less than 400.

In Northcote, we’ve got one of my Opposition candidates taking credit for a local housing development that was established under the National Government. The Northcote Development, may I remind this House, was an initiative that was established under National, not under this Government, as the Labour Opposition locally has been calling it. Their answer to solving the housing crisis is to buy private properties and put them into State housing. The Government has bought over 100 houses in the Northcote electorate, and it has taken away from first-time buyers.

What about the environment? Well, this Government talked up a big game about climate change. Well, it may surprise you that emissions have actually gone up in the last two years under this Government. Forty-seven thousand tonnes are projected under this Government in their first term, and under us, in the last term, emissions actually fell by 24,000. May I remind the House that their botched feebate scheme was promised and not delivered.

Let’s turn our attention to the economy. Well, again, they’ve talked up a big game in the economy, but let’s see the facts. The facts are clear: 1.6 percent GDP growth in the last year, near 0 percent per person growth in incomes in the last year, falling business and consumer confidence, and not to mention the projected decline from the coronavirus. This Government has piled on costs—piled on extra costs—for families and for local businesses.

Finally, let’s talk about infrastructure, because the Government’s really big on putting money into infrastructure and announcing things, but what have they delivered? Did the Government talk about light rail to the airport? How’s that going—anybody?

💬 Sarah Dowie: Not well.

Not well at all. What about this project in Auckland that affects my community called SkyPath, or should I call it the Shared Path, or should I call it the Northern Pathway, or should I call it the Te Ara Pae Moana path? I don’t know, because this Government’s changed the name of that project in the last two years. That’s all they’ve done on this project—make announcements with no delivery.

So finally, I just want to use my contribution to summarise that—look, this Government has failed to deliver. National has a plan. We want to put more money in people’s back pockets. We want to actually get things started and built now, not in 10 years’ time. We want to cut red tape and regulation to build our economy up, to get it moving again, so that Kiwis can get on and make a better life for themselves. We will deliver what we promise. We will not do what this Government has failed to do, and that is deliver for New Zealanders. I have no confidence in the Prime Minister.

The Greens are proudly part of a global and local grassroots movement of people who understand that we have to work together and do everything we possibly can; that it is our responsibility to the generations coming after us to make sure that we are protecting and stabilising our climate for a good future for our mokopuna; to make sure that we are supporting communities to live decent lives; and that caring for our climate, our environment, and people goes hand in hand, that we cannot separate that care and responsibility for all of these things apart from each other.

We know that working with people who are at the front line of these big issues—who are at the forefront of climate instability; who are at the forefront of not having enough to live decent lives; who are at the forefront of trying to look after our natural world, our water, and our soil, and our air, and our animals, that we all rely on to live—is the essential way that we are going to resolve those very issues.

So the problem is that the rules and the way that previous Governments have operated have led to the pollution of our air, soil, and water. The rules that have been set down by previous Governments have meant that more people are struggling even more to get by, while the super-wealthy elite have far more than they will ever, ever need. We’ve just heard from National Party members. It is the National Party’s ruinous nine years in Government previously that is absolutely guilty of upholding the cost-saving measures rather than community-serving measures.

They have taken that trade-off, and we are still seeing the impacts and the legacies from their cost-cutting approach to taking care of our people and our planet. They sold off public housing, and we are still mopping up the mess. They allowed houses to be used as a way for wealthier people to build even more wealth, where in this country you can get away with owning tens and hundreds of houses as one person, while thousands of families still cannot find one home to live in.

The previous Government absolutely uphold that and, in fact, have some pride in allowing that immorality to keep happening. Politicians and definitely the previous Government have caused funding shortfalls for core public services, including the previous National Government—funding services to be able to look after our key living systems like water infrastructure that is today degraded, that this Government, at least, is acknowledging needs to be fixed up, sorted out. They have allowed for slack rules over the decisions we make over keeping our water clean and plentiful.

The previous Government absolutely encouraged the slackness of those rules over our water and land decisions. We have let these slack rules that governments—central and local and authorities—have then made decisions to allow industries to keep polluting water and soil when instead we should be supporting new economic ways of being that are going to ensure that we’ve still got our rivers and our water sources and healthy, growing soils here for 100 years to come and more, but that is not the long vision that that previous National Government are ever, ever capable of.

So as an impact of that, we still do have far too many children and their families living in poverty and in hardship. We still do have far too many people finding it really hard to find a warm, accessible, secure home that they can put their roots down in. We still do have degrading waterways and a water crisis, and we still do have an economy that relies on industries that increase our carbon and polluting emissions into the very climate that we should be working to protect.

So the Green Party knows that houses are a core public good—are a human, fundamental right that everyone deserves. We know that incomes need to be enough so that people can live with dignity and that everyone deserves to live with dignity. We are clear that water is a taonga for future generations and not just a tradable commodity good for the highest bidder. We can do better, and this Government has made the important start and steps to turn us in a better direction. We welcome these changes that we have taken to correct generations of harmful Government decisions, especially those made by the previous National Government who were selling off public housing—we have stopped that, the Nats didn’t do that. We have linked benefit increases to wage increases. The Nats—the National Government—didn’t do that. We have stopped penalising children for not having their father’s name on a piece of paper. We have stopped doing that. The National Government did not do that.

So yes, I get a little emotional when they stand up and dare try to talk about children in poverty, because they didn’t make the decisions that could have made it so much easier for all those very children and families that they are now pretending to care about. We’ve built more public houses this term than ever in the last 20 years. The National Government didn’t do that either.

So I’m really proud of the things that we have been able to start: things like Jan Logie’s whole of Government, whole of system approach to ending domestic violence and child abuse; things like finally getting legislation agreed in this House that we want a zero carbon economy in our near future; things like banning new offshore oil and gas permits. This is what you get with the Greens in Government: having water high on the agenda, finally, as something that we all have to protect; having the largest funding boost to the Department of Conversation that we have seen in 16 years; and pulling in a progressive homeownership plan—something that we haven’t seen in this country, I think, since the 1980s, as far as I can remember. And yes, we’ve done all these things. We’ve got this track record of what we can do with only eight MPs in this Government, and we are well aware that we need to go further and faster to make sure that we are resolving our climate change, our inequality, and our environmental protection issues.

I recently opened the first climate-safe house in New Zealand in Waitati in Dunedin. We can have a whole nation of climate-safe houses that are transportable, that are made affordable, that are energy efficient, that are able to withstand the weather extremes and the instability that we are likely to also face.

We must ensure that we prioritise public housing. We must have strong rules for water use and to upgrade all of the infrastructure around the country, and we have to urgently increase core baseline benefit amounts, which is what the working expert group insisted that we needed to do. We need to remove the harsh sanctions in our social security system, because they do not work. They make it harder for people already struggling. We need to make sure that the ideas for properly funding these solutions pick up, that the super, uber-wealthy need to be paying their fair share of tax so that we can increase the revenue to Government to fix all of these issues that desperately need fixing. As the Green Party, I am proud to be able to stand up and acknowledge that we need to increase our revenue if we’re serious, even just on things like saving our harbours from further water infrastructure pollution.

The main thing here that I know we need to do is reject the dehumanising and trade-off approach that we have just heard from the Opposition side of this House, where they stand up—they want to separate us off. They want to say, “This group is bad and this group is good.” We’re all in this together, and isolating and dividing and separating us is what has caused these issues in the very first place. We’re not going to be able to resolve these massive problems unless we bring people together, unless we realise that in every group, in every sector, in every community, they are simply just people. We are all people trying to do our best. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a privilege to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to take my call on the Prime Minister’s statement. In my previous life I was a broadcaster of almost 30 years—mid- to low-range alto voice. As a newsreader, I feel that I am well qualified to make this statement: we have, under this Government, good news—good news to share with our country of all the ways that we have turned back the tide of desperation and that dark, blue cloud that was shrouding the country under the leadership of the National Party. So good news for all in New Zealand.

Let me start with the health of our nation. Under our Minister, the Hon Dr David Clark, and our Prime Minister we have taken a focus of ensuring that for cancer—which is one of the diseases which many New Zealanders and many families are affected by—there is a boost to funding for Pharmac so that these cancer drugs can be rolled out in a far more speedy and transparent way, and that has happened. We now have a Cancer Control Agency which will deliver a new 10-year cancer action plan.

We have heard some great news from Pharmac and Pfizer—the drug agency with Ibrance, which is now available for free for those women who have received the news that they have breast cancer. And for all of those women whose lives have been touched and their family’s lives have been touched—and there are those in this House, myself included, as I lost my mother from breast cancer—this is amazing news: to finally have Ibrance funded, which will be life-extending for all of those. There are around 1,100 New Zealand patients who will benefit from this and the funding starts in less than a month’s time on 1 April.

So the focus of this Government is people and the wellness of our society. Wiki Mulholland, who came to the select committee—I’m a member of the Health Committee—she came along with her husband. They had been campaigning to get Pharmac to fund a wider range of drugs, and they have said how rapt they are that Ibrance will now be funded from April. Previously, people had to pay around $6,000 for a month’s supply of Ibrance; now it will be free. This is transformational and this is good news for all of those sufferers of breast cancer.

Mental health has been a focus of this Government. We now have the Mental Health Commission back on track. We’ve had the first reading in the House. It is now in the select committee stage and we will re-establish the commission, which will, in fact, be delivering on a coalition agreement between New Zealand First and Labour. We know that mental health and addiction issues are devastating not just individuals in our society but whole families and whole communities, and so this is going to be crucial to transforming the support services that we need to wrap around these communities. So that is more good news, as we have released $1.9 billion to look at preventing suicide and taking care of people’s mental wellbeing as well.

The Suicide Prevention Office has been opened. It was a pleasure for me to attend the opening, alongside the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and the Minister of Health, Dr David Clark, and also too a young All Black, Nehe Milner-Skudder, who was there at the opening, who shared his stories of his own mental health journey. For the opening of that office, $40 million was set aside, but also too specifically set aside for our Māori and Pacific suicide prevention community fund was $12 million. So that is more good news as we focus on ensuring the mental wellbeing of all New Zealanders.

Even into the regions—in the Waikato we had an announcement earlier of a mental health facility in Waikato to improve the outcome for those with mental health and addiction issues in that region, and we’re replacing the Henry Rongomau Bennett Centre, which had fallen into a bit of neglect. That became almost no longer fit for purpose, so we focus now on restoring that facility.

There has been a 72 percent increase in people being seen by mental health and addiction services over the past nine years, and so our focus surely is in the right place.

Still staying in the health sector—because it’s not just those who are ill; it’s those who provide support to us—it’s those first responders, the paramedics. We are going to acknowledge the status that they should have to be recognised as registered health professionals under the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act. So money was delivered to them—$38.2 million—last year to secure the future of our ambulance services, as well as recognising their professional status. We care about the health and the wellbeing, and that is great news.

For those who feel that they have not received justice inside our criminal system, we have set up—and this was another plan from the New Zealand First coalition agreement with Labour—the Criminal Cases Review Commission. It was a pleasure to attend the opening of that, which is also to be set up in the regions—in the Waikato region. Mr Colin Carruthers QC will be leading that. He’s the chief commissioner, alongside his establishment advisory group, because it’s really important that we know that the courts have complete independence. They require rules to work effectively, they require funding, and, of course, they require the support of the Government, so our coalition Government has committed to having a modern and effective justice system by putting the permanent Criminal Cases Review Commission in place.

This commission is our commitment to an absolutely just and effective system for review. It will substantially improve our system for responding to all those miscarriages of justice, and it will take away the burden on the applicants who couldn’t afford to have their cases relooked at. They will now have the assistance for their voices to be heard. That is good news.

Speaking of news, the media: currently, we know that we have a crisis in our media. In our broadcasting landscape, there’s a crisis of trust. There’s also a crisis of the business model. The business model is broken, and so this Government has set about to ensure our public media is futureproofed as the changing ecosystems around the world—this is a global issue, to make sure that our public media is protected and futureproofed. So we are very pleased to be able to support a public media business case. That’s a very practical step that we can take to ensure we have a strong media environment, because, of course, having a strong media environment is crucial for a healthy democracy.

This report will be due back in a few months’ time, and it will guide us as to what options are available, what is the design of any kind of merger to form an elaborate or a larger New Zealand broadcasting industry, what those designs are and what the costs are going to be, and any likely time frames that it will take. So that is a practical and very pragmatic step, and we’re pleased to be part of ensuring that our media is futureproofed.

But we also too would like to look to the future, and in doing that, we are able to ensure that we get some cars off the road, because it’s really important. With all the congestion from all those trucks, let’s get the transport on the rail. So we are reinvigorating KiwiRail through the Provincial Growth Fund. I went to the announcement on the North Auckland Line, between Swanson and Whangārei, actually. There will be significant benefits for the Northland economy as we get those trucks off the road and we are able to move all of that transport through the rail network. It will provide a lot of jobs as well, in training up young people to work on the railway lines. They’re very excited about that. That’s more than a billion dollars to get New Zealand’s rail system back on track, so that rail actually can play its proper role in reducing that road congestion, and the emissions, of course, will be reduced with having less cars on the road.

Finally, I’d just like to make a quick note on one of the taonga of our ngahere, and that’s the kauri tree. We have a significant problem with kauri dieback. It affects all of those forests in the upper North Island, and we have prioritised biosecurity in ensuring we have research to help combat the kauri dieback disease.

So this is a Government with great news—not just good news; great news. Therefore, I support the Prime Minister’s statement.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise and do not support the Prime Minister’s statement. I would like to start on behalf of the National Party by acknowledging those people not just in New Zealand but, actually, around the world, with the uncertainty, the angst, and the fear that many feel over the coronavirus at the moment and what is happening. I want to acknowledge those in business who are seeing a marked drop in their business and who are worried for its survival, and those who are in jobs and are in fear of losing those jobs or seeing their hours reduced, which is really real for them as they try and pay their bills and do what they do. We in the National Party want to take this opportunity to know and acknowledge and say that we understand where it’s at and that we share, actually, a lot of their concerns.

When you look at businesses, they’re saying there’s a 30 percent drop in hospitality so far. Hotels are talking about having one booking now for the month of July. People are fearful of getting on a plane because of what that might mean in travelling long distances. Exporters, of course, are already saying there’s $100 million in reductions that they’re seeing so far, and there are projections of $300 million.

We do stand up here and ask the question why so much emphasis is about helping people go on to the unemployment benefit when, actually, we’d like to see more of an emphasis about how we keep people in their jobs and keep them connected to the workforce. Everyone will agree, of course, and there’s every bit of research around it that says that if we actually keep them connected to their employer, even if it’s with reduced hours—and instead of seeing that money go on welfare, have it actually go directly to the employer or the employee so that they can stay in the job—economically, it makes sense. It makes much more sense for the worker themselves, because they’re staying connected to the workforce, and when that work picks up, they can—and, of course, businesses want to do that because they want to keep valued employees.

We don’t seem to be looking at that as a kind of solution at the moment, and it’s one that we would like to see a lot of work being done on very quickly. It happened, of course, in Christchurch after the earthquakes. I myself was actually involved in getting that programme up and running, and I know for a fact that it saved a lot of jobs and it saved a lot of families. It meant that they could continue to pay their bills, which is what most of us want to do.

I also want to acknowledge, though, the delay in timely, and the right, information getting out. Never was that more stark than this morning, when on TV we saw the Minister of Health confirm that there was a third case of COVID-19, and a little while longer—and I believe it was minutes, not hours—in an interview with RNZ, the Director-General of Health was asked if there’d been a third case, and he said, “I will be making statements about that this afternoon.” We then waited six hours, and, of course, there was a lot of uncertainty for New Zealanders. I would just plead to the Government: they have a role to take leadership here and get that timely information out in the correct manner to people so that they aren’t left with a vacuum that leads that fear to continue to grow.

I also want to acknowledge doctors. We say that we should be actually being led by the health professionals, and I agree completely. But we have doctors that are saying they want to and should be testing people but they’re told they can’t because there are not enough tests to be done. The Ministry of Health, from what I’ve read, are only able to do about 500 tests. That’s proving to not be enough, and we need a faster, speedier response there.

We need to be supporting our businesses so that we can support those workers getting the right health response and giving them everything. The good news, ladies and gentlemen, is that the National Party are going to bring forward their economic plan so that people can see a path to prosperity and to certainty and to make sure that we can deliver our plan so that they know what’s kind of going on. We do not see an economic plan from the Government, except to put more people on welfare. New Zealand needs a better response.

We control our borders. We are one of the few countries in the world that you can’t walk into or paddle to, and, as a consequence of that, we could be doing much more in our airports and on our planes to make sure that we are protecting our people and ensuring that we’re getting the right response to them. So I say beef up the support at airports more; ensure there is more testing, better management, and information; and, on economic businesses and workers, get a plan that actually keeps people into work.

Well, the chaos that is the Ardern - Peters - Greens Government is absolutely in display in this debate that I have seen for the last few days. I mean, come on: let’s give New Zealanders some straight answers. Is the “freebate” for electric vehicles dead or is it alive or is it a maybe that we get from the Prime Minister or it might—“I don’t know. I can’t say,” says the Prime Minister, “because I can’t actually manage this Government to give a straight answer to let you all know what’s going on.”

In that week of fear and uncertainty that we saw growing last week as the first case came out about coronavirus—New Zealanders obviously worried; tourism slowing down; hotels and our hospitality industry all really concerned—what was the response or the priority that we got from the Government that week? I know: let’s give prisoners voting rights. Yeah, that is the response and a priority from a Government that is tinkering at the edges and not actually addressing the issues that New Zealanders want them to be doing. By the way, they’ll speed it through Parliament this year and not go through due process, because they want it in before the election. I think that’s disgraceful, in a week where we see such uncertain times for New Zealanders, and says a lot, actually, about this Government’s priorities.

Let’s get some certainty around the question that New Zealanders are going to have for legalising recreational cannabis—yeah? So they’ve taken the right away from Parliament to decide the question for the first time ever. Cabinet’s going to make the choice; it’s not going to go through the proper process that it normally does. And then what we’re seeing is they are deliberately misleading New Zealanders so that they will mix up medicinal and recreational cannabis. That is a disgrace in itself, and I would love to hear from New Zealand First where they stand on that.

They can’t deliver—oh no; that’s not fair. They deliver more gang members—yeah. They can’t deliver—oh, that’s not fair of me. They delivered seven KiwiBuild houses in January, so that’s making a big difference! The wonderful Judith Collins highlighting yet again more virtue signalling from the Government when they tell us about a homeownership package that, by the way, they’ve put a working group on and they’ve got a few more announcements to make on it but no actual deliverables, of course, because they don’t want to. But, you know, there are things that they have delivered. They’ve delivered higher rents—yeah. They’ve delivered the cost of petrol going up. They’ve delivered more homelessness—yeah. They’ve delivered more child poverty—so more children are actually living in poverty now than they were when this Government came in. Oh, they’ve delivered more people on welfare at a time of record low unemployment. In fact, they’ve delivered 15,000 more children into welfare-dependent households to date—to date.

The argument this Government wants to have is: what level should benefits be at? Let’s have an argument about how we can get them into productive work, into better lives, into owning their own businesses, and getting ahead instead.

The very people that were promised so much from this chaotic Government have been the very people that have been most let down—the most let down. They were given false hope that has actually left their lives worse off because of the policies and the lack of delivery of this Government.

Only National will give real relief to families. Only National will build roads, and only National will make them and their families safer. National understands the economy. National knows that the role of Government is to provide relief and certainty to New Zealanders, particularly in troubled times, and to help them get ahead. We have positive plans that are going to strengthen families, that are going to make their lives better and improved, that are going to reduce the cost of living, and that are going to take away the false hope, the chaotic Government, that’s been in front of them and actually show some strong leadership.

That member doth protest too much. The Government is proud to support the Prime Minister’s statement because we know in these brief couple of years, and a little bit more to go, while we’ve achieved much—and many members on this side of the House have said that—there is so much more to do. But there’s a saying: if you want to see our work, look around—look around. We have a confidence and supply and coalition partner that is working constructively with the Government to achieve so much for people, because we do believe that New Zealand is a great place to live in and to raise our children, where we should have a fair and decent society that invests back into our community. But, in a nutshell, we’re doing so much, and we have so much more to do.

I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but her time has expired. The question is that the amendment in the name of the Hon Simon Bridges be agreed to. [Interruption] Excuse me, I’m putting the vote.