Address in Reply

It gives me great pleasure to rise in this debate. Before I return to the Address in Reply specifically, I do just want to note that on this side of the House we stand proudly behind our Minister of Housing and the development of housing supply. This is a Government that built more houses than any other Government since the 1970s. This is a Government that on coming into office turned around a policy that saw, in the middle of a housing crisis, the mass sale of State houses. That was their response; it was a housing crisis and they decided to sell houses. As the Minister has already said today, if the previous Government had been building State houses at the rate that this Government has been building them, there wouldn’t be a waiting list. So if the members on the other side of the House want to look at the reason for our housing crisis, look in the mirror.

When the Prime Minister stood in the House last week to respond to the Address in Reply debate, she made clear that New Zealand and the New Zealand Government had three priorities from here. The first of those is to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID19. On that score, every member of this House, I am sure, would join me in thanking all 5 million New Zealanders, because while the Government can lay out a plan and a strategy for what we need to do, that only works if every New Zealander buys into it. That is something that has been quite unique about New Zealand’s response to COVID19: that New Zealanders have got in behind the strategy and they’ve stuck with it. They saw a Government that had a plan and stuck with it, didn’t flip-flop about what it wanted, didn’t change its mind about alert levels; it stuck to the plan and New Zealanders backed that, and I am very grateful to them for that. So, from here, it is a matter of the Government continuing that strategy on. The elimination strategy is built on multiple lines of defence.

While I’m on the subject of congratulations, I want to say “thank you” to those who work in our managed isolation and quarantine facilities. This is a very, very difficult job under trying circumstances. Many of them have had to put on hold critical parts of their lives, the work they do in communities, and the time they spend with their families. We have to be very grateful for them. In return, along with that gratitude, we will continue to strengthen what we do at the border: our testing regimes, our infection control mechanisms, and the staffing that we provide there. Also is the work that we do on contact tracing and surveillance testing; all of that has gone well and all of that must continue.

But what we do want to focus on as we move forward is the ability to deliver a free and effective vaccine to New Zealanders—and, as was traversed in question time today, a lot of work has gone into that. It will be something that will happen over time. We will need to prioritise our health workers. There will be population groups that we have to give that to first. But New Zealand is in a strong position to do this because of the response that we have taken to now.

We said from day one that the best economic response was a strong public health response, and that has proved to be true. Earlier in question time I ran through some of the economic data. Exports are doing well. Retail sales are up. All of that is possible because we took a strong public health response, because people can be back out in the community spending. Businesses know that; they are working alongside the communities to make sure that jobs are maintained and retained. That will be critical to any recovery. On this side of the House, we will always put people first in New Zealand when it comes to the way that we run our economy.

Our job now is to accelerate that recovery. We’ve done well but we can do better. We also have to acknowledge that there are some people who have lost their jobs, and some communities who are still struggling. We will be alongside them at every step of the way. That comes from investing in our people.

Minister Hipkins has already mentioned today the success of the initiative around apprenticeships. We were never going to repeat the mistake of the previous Government in the wake of the global financial crisis, because what they did then was stand on the sidelines and let apprentices be laid off in business after business. Not only did that affect those people, it also meant that when the recovery came we didn’t have the skilled workforce we needed to actually be able to build the houses and build up the businesses that we need. So that’s why we made apprenticeships free. That’s why we’ve invested in trade training. To hear about the thousands of New Zealanders taking that up warms my heart, and I want to that Minister Hipkins for advocating for that so early on in the piece.

In addition to that, we will be taking measures to support people into work, including the return of the training incentive allowance for those degree courses. On this side of the House, we will never pull the ladder up behind us, and that’s what we saw over there when the training incentive allowance disappeared last time. We want every New Zealander to be part of this economic recovery. We have got a comprehensive plan of investment there. These numbers can sometimes be mind-boggling, especially for a Minister of Finance: $42 billion going into infrastructure over the next few years to futureproof our economy and create jobs. That’s $9.6 billion for Waka Kotahi, the New Zealand Transport Agency; $3.8 billion on those education facilities that were left out of the plans of the previous Government. The same in our hospitals as well; we are making sure there are facilities being built right across New Zealand, along with the work that Kāinga Ora is doing, as the Minister has already said today, to deliver 18,000 public and transitional homes. This is about making sure that the policies that we enact not only accelerate our economic recovery but also start to address some of the long-term issues that New Zealand has. This is the opportunity for us to build back better.

Part of building back better is another part of our economic plan, and that is the preparation for a low-carbon economy. We can bring forward the 100 percent renewable electricity target for 2030. We will prohibit the building of new thermal baseload electricity. We will get those dry year storage options, such as pumped hydro, up. We will get green hydrogen going. On this side of the House, it’s not some kind of “or” when it comes to the environment and the economy; it’s an “and”. We only get a strong economy if we have a sustainable environment, and we will address those issues.

We will continue to back our small businesses. Again I want to give credit to the way that small businesses have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. They’ve pivoted, they’ve been innovative, and they’ve been supported by a Government that has got alongside them with the wage subsidy scheme and with the small business cash-flow scheme. On the other side of the House, they like to undermine things like the way we’re going to regulate merchant service fees. All that does is show how out of touch they are with small business, because every member on this side of the House knows that when we went around in the election campaign and you mentioned that policy, retailers’ eyes lit up because they knew that they were being ripped off, and we’re going to do something about it.

Alongside all of this, we can’t forget our position in the world. I want to give credit to both the current and former Ministers of Trade for the work that they’ve done to get us into a position now where we have the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership being signed, we’ve made progress in our upgrade of the China free-trade agreement, we’re working on the EU and UK deals that we see in the future, but we’re also out there in the world supporting our businesses to make sure they can get profitable and get more business in an era where they need to be in the digital space much more often. So we’ve put an extra quarter of a billion dollars into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise to be able to support all of that.

But none of that takes away from the issues that New Zealand was facing before COVID-19 arrived, around issues of climate change, of child poverty, and of housing. We must and we will be taking further action in those areas.

When it comes to child poverty, we all know that the Government that Jacinda Ardern leads will put that at the centre of what we do. What we also know is that the statistics that have been thrown up by the National Party over the last couple of years are actually about when they were in Government. When we see the full impact of the Families Package on those child poverty numbers, we know that that’s lifting hundreds of thousands of families out of poverty. We know that the winter energy payment has made sure not only that our low-income people have been able to keep warm but also that our older New Zealanders have as well. The dignity that is offered to New Zealanders by that should never be underestimated by a National Party who opposed all of that.

So we have a strong plan. We have a five-point economic plan that we are rolling out. We are focused on the long-term issues that have bedevilled New Zealand for so long. But as the Prime Minister says, it’s also about the way we work. This will be a Government that is marked out by the way we continue to improve Māori Crown relations and by the way that we support one another across all parts of Government to be able to improve the wellbeing and the living standards of New Zealand. I believe the agenda of this Government is something to be extremely proud of; it will change New Zealanders’ lives for the better; and it will ensure that we keep our people safe, we accelerate our recovery, and we make sure that we build the foundations for a strong and prosperous future for all New Zealanders.

Andrew Bayly—a five-minute call.

Thank you, and, first of all, I’d like to acknowledge you reassuming the Chair, Mr Speaker; the Deputy, and of course, the Assistant Speakers—with our very own Jacqui Dean. I would also like to acknowledge all the new MPs—particularly the five from National—a great intake. Also, to all the returning MPs to the House, great to see you back here today. I just wanted to congratulate the Government. You have won a resounding victory and you now have a massive majority—but that means there are no excuses now. Not even with the Greens tidily tucked away over here, just on the sidelines.

The nation was gripped, waiting for the Speech from the Throne. We waited, we have waited, and the question that I’ve got to ask: what are the big new initiatives that this Government wants to do over the next three years? With all these new Ministers, with all the ambitions that they’ve got, where is the driving transformational change that they want to bring about in the next three years? When you looked at what the Prime Minister announced so proudly in 2017, she said lovely things: “This will be a Government of inclusion. This will be a Government of transformation. This will be a Government of aspiration.” But what has happened to the Government of 2020?

To me, it appears to be playing safe. We know the game. No doubt the Prime Minister’s already said to the Deputy Prime Minister: “Grant, stick in the middle, do not scare people, and let’s keep talking about COVID—because that means we don’t need to justify much. It doesn’t mean that we have to go out and do a whole lot of stuff.” Well, I say to you, let us not be shaped by COVID. Instead, let us use COVID as a platform for growth and change. This raises the wider issue: where is the vision for this term, for this new Government? We are in the grips of the largest economic crisis for some time, for so very long. We’ve seen our debt go from $60 billion to just under $100 billion, and it’s going to double again to $200 billion. We need leadership. We also need a clear vision.

The speech was full of slogans. I love this one: “Relentlessly pursuing progress.” And the other one, “We must continue to tackle these issues, at gathering scale, at gathering speed, and with gathering effect.” It’s almost Churchillian. Visionary words, but where are the actions? Where is the vision? How do we get out of this financial mess? This Government is focused on making some tax changes. In fact, we’ve got a bill coming through today which is going to seek to capture $550 million a year. It is tinkering at the edges. What is required is an economic strategy that assists our businesses to employ more people, to want to grow, and to want to take a risk. But what was in the Budget? Not much. A bit of training and a few other initiatives, but for our smaller businesses a nasty, nasty surprise—another five days’ sick leave, which they will have to pay; increase in the minimum wage, which they will have to pay. No doubt with our ex - trade unionist Minister now running the employment law, we will see further changes to that.

The question is: where is the vision? I think, with a country that’s piling on debt at $110 million a day, New Zealand has an issue, it has problems. What people don’t even realise is that we’re borrowing to pay for the interest. This is not a recipe for success. I welcome the opportunity for initiatives around trade deals, but with gathering scale, with gathering speed, and with gathering effect, we have a train wreck coming towards us in terms of a housing crisis and in terms of an economic crisis. We need a plan and vision.

I call the Hon Michael Woodhouse, five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I’d like to add my congratulations to you and your fellow presiding officers on your election. A welcome to all new MPs arriving into the 53rd Parliament and my congratulations to the Government for the very strong mandate that they have.

I was reflecting on the comments from the Hon Carmel Sepuloni who also, on last Thursday in this debate, talked about the departing MPs and, in particular, those that weren’t planning to depart. It was a very empathetic comment—she has been there before—but I was quite connected, I think, to her comment that there was “no time for sad faces.”

She also rebuked David Seymour for his comments—criticisms, I guess, of the Prime Minister for what he called “slogans”, and she said, “Well, I don’t call kindness a slogan, actually, I think that we should be proud that as a country, as a party, that kindness is part of people’s everyday language now.” I kind of agree with that, but I’ve got a different definition of “kindness”, because she was talking about words of kindness, but for me kindness is a verb; it’s an act. We talk about acts of kindness. The opposite of an act is inaction and, sadly, we have seen too much inaction—lots of words, but too much inaction. Promises made but not delivered on. When a Government talks about child poverty but doesn’t actually take the steps to alleviate it, when it implements policies around employment and housing that actually make things worse, that’s not kindness. When it talks about housing prices as a crisis, but actually throws fuel on the fire of runaway house price inflation, that’s not kindness. And when it talks about—for nine years it bagged the previous National Government for its actions in the health sector and then spends three years overseeing dramatically reducing elective surgery, lowering immunisation rates, longer elective surgery waiting times, and cancer treatment, that is a disgrace. That is not kindness.

I accept, as the Government says—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: No one likes you.

—that it cannot do everything—oh, Mr Jackson, come up with a better retort than that. When it cannot do everything in three years, I accept that. But one would’ve expected at least a holding pattern, not the backsliding that we have seen in some key statistics. The fact that 4,100 more children are living in material hardship, the fact that there are 12,000 emergency housing special needs grants now being pushed out every month, that the State house waiting list is now over 20,000—a fourfold increase on what they inherited.

The Minister of Finance has just told us what they’ve spent three years telling, and what I would’ve thought, after three years and a significantly increased mandate, they would stop doing. They were saying: “It’s the National Party’s fault.” Well, guess what? With the mandate they’ve got, the time they’ve had, the promises they’ve made—to be kind—it’s time for this Government to step up—

💬 Dr Shane Reti: Own it.

—and either fix it or own, absolutely right, Dr Reti.

There’s another group that we need to be kind to, and it’s our future generations, because we are saddling them with an eye-watering amount of debt that needs to be repaid. I’ll be long gone—certainly from this House and probably from this Earth—before we even start to make inroads into that. Why? Because this Government does what it does best; it spends. It has a policy of spending more in the good times, because we’ve got more to spend. It has a policy of spending in the tough times because we have to pump-prime the economy. It is the world champion Government of spending. It prints money so it can spend it. But what wasn’t in the Speech from the Throne was anything like a plan for earning it. Governments don’t earn money, they take it off the people who do, and there is an absolute dearth of plans in here to encourage the innovation, the entrepreneurialism, and the sheer hard work of Kiwis to go out and earn the income that the Government then taxes, and that’s the biggest disappointment. So much talk—so much talk about kindness—but very little action.

This is a split call. I call Willow-Jean Prime—five minutes.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tuatahi, māku e mihi kau ana ki a koe mō tō tūranga hōu. Nō reira, tēnā koe. Otirā, tēnā tātou katoa. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa ngā mema Pāremata i roto i tēnei Whare. Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou.

[Greetings, Mr Deputy Speaker. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge your new role. Congratulations. Greetings to everyone. I would like to acknowledge all of the members of Parliament in this House today. Warm greetings to you all.]

Mr Deputy Speaker, congratulations on your appointment to your new role. Welcome to everybody here in the House, the members of Parliament. As this is my first time speaking as the new MP for Northland, I do want to take the opportunity to thank Northland. I am humbled by their support to be the MP for Northland, and it is an absolute honour and privilege. I also want to acknowledge all New Zealanders who voted for this Government. We are humbled to be the first majority Government under MMP in New Zealand. New Zealanders voted for stability and certainty at the election. We know it is a COVID election, and we know that this comes with huge responsibility. In the middle of a global pandemic, New Zealanders have put their trust in us to make sure that we continue to protect the lives and livelihoods of New Zealanders.

I want to reflect on the speech just prior to mine, where there was a reference made to how we are going to pay for the borrowing that we are doing. If the member had listened to the Speech from the Throne, he would’ve heard that we have three overarching objectives, and in there, in accelerating our economic recovery, there is a significant spend on infrastructure investment, which is deliberately to create jobs. Those people who will remain in employment will in turn be paying taxes, which will continue to accelerate our economic recovery. So how they cannot connect those dots I don’t understand.

But if I can say, our three overarching objectives from the Speech from the Throne and the Prime Minister’s Address in Reply speech were to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19. Thank you to the team of 5 million for the work that we have done so far. If I can just say, as we head into the Christmas period and the summer holidays, if everybody can continue to remain vigilant, continue to do the contact tracing, use the apps, continue to stay home if you are sick to protect your loved ones, because we have already done so much work. Our teams at the borders are doing a phenomenal job, constantly adapting to the new challenges being presented, and because of that we are able to now bring more people into the country to support in other areas. So continue to keep New Zealanders safe.

Secondly, to accelerate our economic recovery with a real focus on investing in important infrastructure for our future and the ability to build back better, we have a five-point economic recovery plan which focuses on jobs and people, positioning us globally but also laying the foundations for a better future. In terms of that, I want to talk about laying the foundations for a better future. Wellbeing will continue to be the priority for the Government this term, with a focus on reducing child poverty, tackling climate change, and addressing the housing crisis. In laying foundations in these areas, we will be guided by our values and by our commitment to the wellbeing of our people, looking beyond GDP as a measure of success.

I want to highlight child poverty, an issue that is very dear to the Prime Minister’s heart, also dear to mine and, I’m sure, others in this House. We have said in the Speech from the Throne that we will continue to overhaul the welfare system, that we will extend the free and healthy lunch programme to cover over 200 students, that we will improve access to free oral health care for our children and young people by adding an additional 20 mobile dental clinics, including into rural areas like Northland. We will roll out mental health support to our primary and intermediate students and continue to roll out nurses in secondary schools.

Finally, in the short time that I have left, I want to say what a huge honour and privilege it is to be the co-chair of the largest Māori caucus within the Labour Party. We will continue to strengthen Māori-Crown relationships and ensure that the Crown is a better Treaty partner. With 15 members in our caucus—six Ministers, five in Cabinet, one under-secretary, and a number of members available to be on all of the select committees—we know there is a huge expectation and obligation on us from Te Ao Māori to deliver for Te Ao Māori, and that is something that as a Māori caucus, we feel that weight of expectation and we are absolutely committed to giving it our all to ensure that we deliver outcomes for our people. Kia ora.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Tuatahi, e tika me mihi ki tō tātou hoa, tō tātou rangatira, Rudy Taylor. Nō reira e te hoa e maumahara tō kaha ki te kōkiri i ngā kaupapa mō tā mātou kāhui Māori i ngā wā katoa. Nō reira e te hoa, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā.

Ka nui tēnā. Ki a koutou ngā mema hōu kua tae mai nei i tēnei rā. Ko tēnei te tino hōnore ki te mihi ki a koutou. Tēnā koutou, tēnā anō tātou katoa.

[Firstly, it is only right that I acknowledge our friend, our distinguished elder, Rudy Taylor. My friend, I will always remember your endless strength and determination in supporting the Māori caucus. Rest in peace my friend, rest in peace.

I will leave that there. To all the new members who have arrived today, it is my great honour to congratulate you all. Greetings to one and all.]

I was reminded by our chief whip here that I have to be courteous today because this is the first day, so I wanted to welcome all the new members of all the parties, including the National Party—the very reduced, de-juiced, depleted, and depressed National Party. I wish them all the best for the next three years because they’re going to need a bit of luck. And Mr Seymour, who somehow brought 10 people or nine people in with him, well done. Well done to him too—shame he’s on the wrong side of the House.

The Speech from the Throne is very clear about our priorities. And our economic plan is perfect for the nation and particularly the Māori nation.

💬 David Seymour: Tell us about it.

I’m glad you’re listening, Mr Seymour. We prioritise health—the health of New Zealanders who responded to COVID-19. We knew that the best economic response was to protect Kiwis and now we must focus on the economic recovery. And I think the $42 billion investment in infrastructure over the next four years will see—will see the country thriving because we’re going to see and we’re going to have a boost in terms of hospitals. We’re going to have a boost in terms of transport. We’re going to have a boost in terms of our economy. Housing is obviously going to be boosted; but, particularly, in the area of jobs where we have free apprenticeships and training, we’re going to see a boost like we haven’t seen in previous years. The $42 billion will ensure the right type of future for this country and, of course, for the Māori nation who will benefit hugely off that investment.

It will add to our by Māori for Māori strategies that have been successful so far. What have those strategies been: Māori trade training—something very dear to our people, something that’s been invested in in terms of $50 million. As the Prime Minister said, we will continue going down the track. He Poutama Rangatahi—another investment from this Government. What we know is at the coalface, if you get behind some of these young people, if you give them an opportunity, you can change their lives. We’ve been able to do that through Mana in Mahi, through He Poutama Rangatahi, and we’ve been able to do that through Māori trade training. This Government will invest with iwi, will invest with Māori organisations in terms of the future of this country, and we’ll see firsthand what opportunity can do for young ones.

We’re a Government, I think, who have been brave and courageous in terms of Māori. Never before have you seen a Government, whether it’s National or Labour, invest in Māori the way that we have. We had record investment in terms of the Budget, but we also went down the oil and gas exploration side and we’re committed to stopping that. We’re going down the Matariki side in terms of a national holiday. Where before would you have had a Māori kaupapa right out at the forefront? We’re going to go down and we’re going to resolve the Ihumātao kaupapa—something that was totally stuffed up by the Opposition and, sadly, by the Māori Party. We’re committed to resolving Ihumātao. This is a brave and courageous Government.

We’re committed to investing in Whānau Ora—something again that was sidelined by the previous Government. In Māori broadcasting, also—an integral part of Māori development—you will see a whole new vehicle in terms of Māori broadcasting. And today I want to salute the Stuff people who have apologised to the Māori nation for their disgraceful and historic writing that has been very biased and very prejudiced and racist against Māori. That balance is what we want to do in Māori broadcasting too, in terms of giving Māori a voice in that area. This Government is committed to balancing things up, but well done to Stuff. It would be great if Mike Hosking and the New Zealand Herald and the other friends of David Seymour also gave an apology so that Māori can get a say in society.

But in summary, we are committed to change with this Government. Kia ora.

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I would like to start by congratulating you on your reappointment as an Assistant Speaker for the coming term. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the work—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Deputy Speaker.

The Deputy Speaker. I beg your pardon. See? We’re off to a good start already! The firm and guiding hand that you gave us in the last term—I’m looking forward to more of that. I’d also like to congratulate the other Assistant Speakers and, of course, the Speaker himself.

I would also like to take a moment to congratulate those new members of Parliament who have joined us here in the Chamber for the coming term. No matter which party you’re from, it is a great honour to serve in this House.

I would like to say I am delighted that three of those new members, of course, are members of the Green Party. The first time that we have managed to expand the size of our caucus in the last 10 years, since 2011; the first time, actually, that we’ve won an electorate seat since 1999, so 21 years; and the first support party in the history of MMP who started at the beginning of a term of Government above the 5 percent threshold and also finished the end of that term above the 5 percent threshold—in fact, in this case, actually increased our support. So, for us, it was a hugely successful election.

Obviously, our success was slightly overshadowed by our friends and colleagues in the Labour Party, who did astonishingly well, and I would like to congratulate the Labour Party for, again, an historical win under MMP at this election and the vast numbers of new MPs who have joined us in the Labour Party. I would like to say, “Of those to whom much is given, much is expected.”

Chlöe Swarbrick: Let’s do this.

So, given that—let’s do this, even more, even faster, even further. Let’s do more of this, to coin a phrase. So congratulations to you on joining.

Now, I’d like to get into the debate, the Address in Reply and the Speech from the Throne, by picking up on some of the points that were made by the Hon Michael Woodhouse in his earlier contribution, where he pulled out a bunch of Thatcherite slogans and threw them around completely devoid of meaning. I mean, one of the reasons that we were very proud of our, kind of, low deficits and our low debt-to-GDP ratio over the course of the last couple of decades in this country was because we actually failed to invest in our infrastructure. So whilst we might have been carrying a low debt-to-GDP ratio, we were carrying an astonishingly high deficit in virtually every category of public infrastructure that you can imagine—whether that is transport, where in every category of transport, whether it’s roads, whether it’s rail, whether it’s light rail, whether it’s cycleways, whether it’s walking and cycling, we have a chronic under-investment—and the results of that are being felt in our sclerotic cities at the moment. Of course, the previous National Government, as was well advertised at the time, essentially strip mined the transport budget to put in a few short but astonishingly expensive four-lane highways, leaving a huge deficit for this Government to cover.

In housing, clearly, that deficit is making itself felt again and again and again, and the chronic shortage in housing—whether it’s public housing or housing in the private market, whether that’s for people who want to own their own home or to rent—that is absolutely chronic, and that is a result of failures over many decades.

The fact that our schools and our hospitals, many of them are crumbling, are mouldering away—again, that’s public infrastructure that should have been invested in over the course of the last three decades. We have another multibillion-dollar problem in terms of the pipes under our feet that are making ourselves sick. If you remember just prior to the previous election in 2017, of course—a couple of deaths and several thousand illnesses in Havelock North due to the poor nature of the water infrastructure there. Wellington, my home town—where we literally have sewage pouring into the harbour as a result of crumbling infrastructure there over the course of the last 30 years.

We have tens of billions of dollars’ worth of backlog in every category of infrastructure. That is a result of the fiscal settings over the course of the last three decades. The National Party, who are complaining about the lack of action of the Labour-led Government, are as much responsible for their denuding of the public estate as anybody at all. And that is why—that is why—I completely reject the Hon Michael Woodhouse’s pithy, empty sloganeering in his contribution in this debate earlier, because all of those chickens have come home to roost at precisely the moment when COVID-19 hit. So we have this combination, this confluence, of events, which is the fact that our ageing infrastructure is absolutely at the end of its life or past the end of its life, and an absolute need to inject vast amounts of liquidity into the economy at this time in order to stimulate the economy, to keep people in their jobs, to keep things rolling. So it makes absolutely perfect sense right now to address that 30-year infrastructure deficit using the capital that we have to spend anyway in order to keep the economy going through this astonishing pandemic-led downturn.

Now, there was something I was looking for in the Speech from the Throne that I didn’t hear a whole lot about, and so I’m very keen to hear from the Labour Party what their intentions are in the domain of oceans. So there were some clues in the appointment of the Hon David Parker in the role of oceans and fisheries Minister as opposed to just fisheries Minister—that’s quite a good hint about the sense of direction. Another hint is in the appointment as the Associate Minister of Rino Tirikatene, in terms of, obviously, the very important interests that Māori have in the fisheries industry. But as yet, it’s unclear what the programme of action is in this domain, and I would have liked to have heard more about that in the Speech from the Throne, because we know that the system that we have had for the last 30-odd years, in the form of the quota management system (QMS) and the regulatory approach that we’ve had towards the fishing industry, has actually failed to do the job that it is intended to do, which is to make sure that we are able to sustainably operate a fishing industry that actually preserves the biodiversity and marine life in our oceans. It has actually failed to do that.

Now, it would probably have been worse in the absence of that system, when you look at what’s going on in most of the rest of the world, but the rate of decline is measurable and it is only going in one direction. So, you know, during the course of the election campaign, the Green Party did call for what a lot of other countries around the world are doing, and that is putting a third of our exclusive economic zone into marine-protected areas. We’d like to see that on this agenda. We do think that the QMS does need to be reviewed, not just because, scientifically, when you look at the ecosystem health, it hasn’t delivered what it’s intended to do, but also there is some evidence emerging that it actually hasn’t delivered value for Māori as quota holders equivalent to other quota holders as well. So we do think that that needs to be looked at. We do think that we need to move away from simply slicing and dicing fisheries into looking at a whole-of-ecosystem approach to how we manage our marine environment and marine spatial planning. I mean, this is, kind of, not leading-edge stuff. This is what some of the leading countries around the world are doing, and so we hope that the next Government tackles that. If they don’t have a plan, they’re welcome to use ours.

Finally, I do want to turn my attention to what was one of the things that was in the Speech from the Throne that I am very delighted about and has been made obvious over the course of the last week or two: that climate change is still very much at the forefront and at the heart of this new Government’s agenda. There have been some huge developments in recent months. China have come out and said that they intend to be net zero carbon dioxide by the year 2060. That is huge in terms of its impact, not just at the year 2060 but between now and then. With Japan and Korea and others all committing to net zero emissions across all gas categories by the year 2050, every member of the G7 now has a target in place to be net zero in all emissions—I’ll say that, including biogenic methane—across all of their emissions by the year 2050, which is further than this House was prepared to go last year when we unanimously passed the zero carbon Act. So the landscape is shifting hugely, and there is a risk that where we were leading a couple of years ago, we may now be falling behind. There’ll be more on this tomorrow.

Now, it is important that these targets aren’t just empty language and that they’ve got to be backed up with solid action, and that is true of us here in Aotearoa as well. So whilst, in the last term of Parliament, we are very proud of the work that we did collectively as a House, across the aisle, to ensure that we have a long-term strategy, that we have goals and targets and an institutional framework, we have to make sure that this is the term when we bend the curve on our emissions downwards. First task: transport. We’ve got to get our transport emissions under control, our agricultural emissions, our industrial heat emissions, and the technologies and the approaches are there for us to do it. And that is what I say when I say, “Let’s do this.”

This is a split call. I call the Hon Dr David Clark—five minutes.

Mr Deputy Speaker, can I start by congratulating you on your appointment. You are respected across this House and we look forward to working with you in the role.

I also want to congratulate all the new members. They have been referenced by many of the speakers today, and I particularly do want to welcome the two other new members who are resident in the same city as me: Ingrid Leary, who is the new member for Taieri—we welcome her to this House—and also Rachel Brooking, who is resident in Dunedin. It’s bringing the number of local representatives to three, and that’s exciting for our city for the period ahead. So welcome to this House. I look forward to working with you and with all new members across the House.

New Zealanders voted for stability and certainty this election, and ultimately, on this side of the House, we are humbled to be the first majority Government under MMP in New Zealand. We know—it’s been referenced today—that with this responsibility comes, too, huge responsibility with this privilege.

I want to speak a little in my contribution about our five-point plan for economic recovery that will help New Zealand bounce back faster in the COVID period. We of course have an overarching objective of keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, but then the next thing on our list is keeping our economy in good shape, accelerating the recovery, and then laying the foundations for our future.

I heard Mr Woodhouse contribute to the debate on debt. There were some comments there about spending and so on—the usual tired refrains from an Opposition that seems not to have any ideas of its own—and I would like to point out to this House that the net debt that we are projected to have as a country is likely to be at the level that many other countries would like to have started the COVID period at. Relative to those other countries in the OECD that we like to compare ourselves to, we will be keeping debt much lower through the COVID period, and that’s due to the careful stewardship of the Hon Grant Robertson as Minister of Finance.

I referenced at the outset that New Zealanders voted for stability and certainty at this election. That is what the Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, represents to many people I spoke to through the campaign. People who had only ever voted National for their whole lives told me that they were voting Labour this time, in part because of the leadership that our Minister of Finance has shown, for his careful stewardship of the economy, and for his ability to keep that debt down, despite the need for investment as well.

That careful balance that he has maintained with Jacinda Ardern’s leadership for our economy has been crucial to many in the decisions they made in the election, and, of course, the irony of Mr Woodhouse’s comments is that his own party were making spending promises through the election campaign like drunken sailors. They did not say where the money was coming from. They promised money to be thrown about all over the place, but would not commit to scaling anything back. Well, of course, the voters of New Zealand saw through that, and they elected for that stability and certainty of Jacinda Ardern’s leadership and the careful economic stewardship that Grant Robertson has brought to the economy under his tenure.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I recognise the time is evaporating fast, so I’m going to very quickly speak to our five-point economic plan. The first part of that plan is investing in our people, and so we’ve already made investments in apprenticeship schemes, that first year fees-free that supports trades training, and so on.

The second part of our plan is a focus—a relentless focus—on jobs. In my own town, Dunedin, obviously the Government’s bringing the investment in the hospital there—a $1.4 billion investment—that will make sure we have a modern healthcare facility but also it will provide jobs locally, a shovel-ready project that’s going to have 200 jobs attached to it during construction. We’ll build a trades training centre, purpose-built for the city; 200 people will be working on site, then 350 people will be working on the out-patients building; and then, eventually, a thousand people on the in-patients building that will be built in Dunedin. That project is huge for jobs locally. There are infrastructure projects across the country that this Government is investing in to make sure that there are jobs for our people.

We are preparing for the future, a sustainable future, and that means things like bringing forward the 100 percent renewable target in our electricity sector and making sure there’s no new baseload thermal generation, and making sure we listen to what the independent Climate Change Commission brings back with its independent carbon budgets. We want a sustainable economy into the future.

We’ll also be supporting small business. We’ve extended the Small Business Cashflow (Loan) Scheme. I’m looking forward to making announcements around regulating merchant service fees, and we also want to focus on trade to make sure we’re positioned well for the future—high-quality trade deals. We have a plan—

Order! The member’s time has expired. I call the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. As my colleagues have said before me, can I begin my contribution by offering my congratulations to you, and other presiding officers as well, and also say that I look forward to working with you over the course of this term.

As my colleague who has just resumed his seat, the Hon Dr David Clark, said, New Zealanders have clearly voted at the recent election for stability and for certainty, and it is with humility that we on this side of the House stand, being the first majority Government under MMP in New Zealand. That election also has seen a turnout that has increased in 2020, and it grew the most for our youngest voters, many of whom would not have been eligible to vote back in 2017 and were in 2020. Of course, we made it much more accessible and, you know, improved their ability to be able to vote at the election. This year, 60.9 percent of estimated eligible voters aged 18 to 24 voted, up from 50.1 percent at the 2017 election. As the Minister for Youth, that makes me really happy.

Can I also say that one of the results of this election is one of the most diverse Parliaments that we’ve ever had. The diversity on this side of the House also makes me feel incredibly proud. We have an incredibly large Māori caucus, Pacific caucus, and for the first time ever, an ethnic caucus as well. Can I extend my congratulations and welcome to all our new members of Parliament across the House, but make particular acknowledgment of the fact that we do have now seven members of Parliament from Labour who identify with an ethnic minority community in New Zealand. And it is important. It’s important that our House of Representatives actually reflects the diversity of the people that we are elected to serve. While the Leader of the Opposition made a comment last month around the diversity of thought that is important, I just want to make the point that thought comes from experience and contexts and perspectives, and that’s what’s important. It’s important that all of us here, when we make decisions that impact the lives of people around Aotearoa, that we are able to understand their different contexts, perspectives, and experience. That’s why I am so proud that on this side of the House we are beginning to look like the communities that we are here to represent.

It’s also important because many have said we can’t be what we can’t see. So it’s important that people across New Zealand can actually see themselves represented at every level of leadership, including here in Parliament. That makes me happy as the Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities, but we need to go further.

I pivot now to the Speech from the Throne, where there is a distinct recognition of the fact that this Government will have a focus on wellbeing and creating a fairer Aotearoa, and that we will continue to strengthen social cohesion in New Zealand, which is incredibly important. It’s about supporting the diversity that I spoke of and creating a New Zealand where all people feel safe, have equal access to opportunities, and don’t experience discrimination.

I just want to quickly clarify, because I have been asked over the last few weeks, why the change in the portfolio name from ethnic communities to a focus on diversity and inclusion? I feel very strongly and our Government feels very strongly that not only must we acknowledge the importance and the value of diversity and the diversity of skills that we see but we must work to remove the barriers that prevent all New Zealanders from feeling like they belong as New Zealanders and from being able to participate in our society, in our economy, and our politics as well. So I’m pleased that there is that change, and signalling that change in the work programme, as well.

Finally, the three overarching objectives of this Government this term are to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, to accelerate our economic recovery, and to lay the foundations for a better future. I want to just end by thanking, as the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, our charities, our communities across New Zealand—our charitable sector—that demonstrated their aroha, their resilience, and their ability to adapt and respond quickly during lockdowns and various alert levels. They are critical for the success of New Zealand, for a strong and well-functioning community to support all New Zealanders. Thank you.

This is a split call. I call the Hon Louise Upston—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and congratulations to yourself and the presiding officers, for the new Ministers who’ve taken on portfolios, including the Minister who’s just resumed her seat—and to the many New Zealanders who’ve joined us in this wonderful House of Parliament. It is a responsibility and we have a proud tradition of serving our communities.

One of the things I want to touch on, as others have mentioned, is it’s the first time in New Zealand’s history we have a majority Government under MMP. I see that brings with it not just responsibility but obligation, a clear obligation to deliver results for New Zealand. And I want to talk about a couple of those areas, because in the Speech from the Throne this year, actually it was quite similar three years ago and, you know, almost felt a bit like Groundhog Day listening to the Speech from the Throne. But what’s talked about in this year’s one is jobs and a focus on jobs. I think it’s really important when we talk about jobs that there’s been nothing said about where those jobs are, how many jobs they are, what those jobs are, and when they’ll be created. So as a majority Government with an obligation to New Zealanders, I’m expecting to see—and I will hold the Minister accountable for delivering that plan, that detail, and those results. As we know, spending money is easy, really easy, especially when it’s other people’s money. Getting results is much tougher, and now, more than ever, those jobs are needed.

We’ve seen an increase in the number of people on jobseeker benefits—65,000. Actually, half of that was pre-COVID, so we can’t have a Government that continues to blame everything on COVID. Yes, it’s been a particularly challenging time, but guess what? New Zealand was facing challenging times and the Government was failing to get results pre-COVID. So now we have a majority Labour Government, there is an obligation to deliver on jobs. There is an obligation to deliver on housing. There is an obligation to deliver on child poverty.

I’m proud to be a member of a constructive Opposition who supported the then Government in getting climate change legislation through and improving the child poverty legislation, but we must always talk about results. I was quite staggered today, asking the Associate Minister of Housing about the social housing wait list—241 days someone is waiting on the social housing register. That is eight months—eight months! And not only that, if we want to talk about results, the figure has gone up fourfold in the last three years, and the bulk of that was before COVID.

So for those who are watching this debate, listening to this debate, just remember that the statistics were going in the wrong direction pre-COVID. And so as a constructive Opposition, we will focus on the issues that matter. If you look at child poverty, for example, we talk about material hardship because those are the children who live in the worst conditions. And yes, we talk about jobs, because you are far more likely as a child to be living in material hardship if you are in a benefit-dependent home. If you want to talk about lifting incomes, you’re earning three times as much in the minimum wage job as you are on the jobseeker benefit.

So the focus in terms of lifting children out of poverty has to be, and must be, about getting one of their parents into work. That’s what this side of the House is going to focus on when we talk about results, when we talk about jobs, when we talk about child poverty, and when we talk about unacceptable levels of the number of people waiting for housing under this Government, because anyone can talk and make big pronouncements and big statements, but there is absolutely zero excuse and zero tolerance for a Government that doesn’t deliver results when that Government has a majority.

So if you look, for example, at children living in material hardship, the Prime Minister had said she would be reducing the number by 30,000, by 2021. It actually went up 11,000, going in the opposite direction. And I know, for those bright, shiny new MPs, you’ll want to know you made a difference in your community. So it’s about getting results.

I call the Hon Todd McClay—five minutes.

Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you very much. May I start by congratulating you on your election to this role, and the Speaker himself and other presiding officers. I look forward to working with you. Can I also congratulate all members of Parliament who are here in this House today. It is a great honour, one of the greatest honours and privileges that anybody can have, to serve their constituents and their country, and I believe all of us come here for the right reasons. The challenge we have is over a period of time whether those right reasons are delivered on. I am quite concerned that it’s going to be difficult for so very many New Zealanders over this next year and these next two years, and even more concerned it’s going to be so very difficult for so many more New Zealanders than it needs to be.

Fundamentally, the Government has an absolute obligation to come up with a plan that’s going to make people’s lives better. It is a good thing that they care, but caring itself is not helping the mum who’s finding the prices at the supermarket are too much for her to meet because the costs have gone up. And the bit the Government can do something about—the costs they pile on businesses that are passed on to consumers—they are not. It’s important that they say they care about small businesses in New Zealand who are struggling under debt they took on during the lockdown of COVID through no fault of their own, but all that has been extended to them is an extension of more debt, as opposed to real policies that are going to help those businesses get out from the weight of that debt and help more of them survive than is likely to be the case.

So for the next three years, the Government will be judged on how hard it is for New Zealanders and whether, actually, they are able to do more things for them in this three years compared to the last three years, when actually the progress was not what the Kiwis deserve. But we’re seeing this week already that the first thing they’re going to do is some tax.

💬 Hon Dr David Clark: Stop talking down our businesses.

What we won’t see is tax on pushbikes—that’s why you’re sitting back there and not up the front any more, so that’s a good thing—but largely what will happen is the top tax rate is going to go up. And the Government signalled that, but it was nothing more than signalling. Actually, what they should be doing is being careful with the spending of the $200 billion that they will borrow—not necessarily sending a signal they want to tax Kiwis more.

The second thing they won’t rule out is around that capital gains tax, or that brightline test. They said before the election they wouldn’t tax Kiwis more, but today we hear in this House that actually it’s not off the table, it’s on the table. With the top tax rate going up to 39 percent, even if they don’t touch the brightline test, Kiwis will be paying more, because it will be based on their actual tax rate, and in many cases it will be a higher rate.

And, of course, that comes directly back to the cost of living. We’ve seen the Government signal that they’ve started an inquiry for the Commerce Commission into supermarket pricing, and that in a year’s time the Commerce Commission will report back to them. But the Government actually doesn’t have to wait for a year to see why some costs in supermarkets have gone up. There are things that they can do right now to make sure those costs don’t escalate and are reduced, and those are the costs they’re putting on businesses and small businesses in New Zealand. So we’ll see this week the start of a process to double sick leave. Everybody wants an employee to be looked after if they’re sick, but the direct implication of doubling of sick leave; of a new public holiday the Government says they’ll bring in in a year’s time; of the increase of the minimum wage, if it goes too quickly; and of some of the other things they’ve signalled around workplace relations is a cost of $2.8 billion on New Zealand businesses.

Now, when a small business in New Zealand has costs imposed on it by the Government, they have to do one of two things. They have to pass those on—and where they can, that increases costs to consumers—or they have to absorb those costs, and over the last two years of extra costs imposed by the Government and the debt with COVID, so many of these small business can’t absorb any more costs. So ultimately, what they do is when somebody leaves their workforce, they’re not able to replace them. That means job growth slows at a time when we need more jobs, not fewer, and that’s a leading indicator of what’s going to happen with unemployment.

A lot of people have lost their jobs in New Zealand as a result of COVID. The Government needs a plan to help businesses grow the economy and create jobs, not piling burden of cost upon those businesses, particularly small businesses, because too many Kiwis that deserve to be in jobs won’t be, too many businesses that deserve to survive won’t, and, ultimately, what that means is the recession that we’re seeing and the harm that’s done to the economy will continue. The Government needs a plan to get off the back of small business, which gives them a chance to create the jobs that they need so Kiwis can work hard. It’s hard work that will get us through the recession, not more tax and not more costs.

This is a split call. I call Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. May I echo the congratulations from many speakers who have already spoken before me on your selection as the Deputy Speaker. We are honoured that you bring much mana to this role. It would be remiss of me to respond to the speech that has just happened, but I think I will just leave that for another time.

The question I want to ask, really, is how did we get here, to an MMP environment where the majority of the voters have voted in one particular party? If we ask the question again—how did that happen?—perhaps it is because of its leader, the leadership of our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. When we talk about being guided by our labour values or our enduring New Zealand values, we ask the question: well, what are those values? Well, actually, it is about the values of equality, ōritetanga; sustainability, kaitiakitanga; opportunity, whakaōritetanga; solidarity, kotahitanga; and the one I love the most is freedom, rangatiratanga—the right to fully participate in a society and to exercise choice about how we live our lives. These values recognise that people can only exercise the freedom when they can fully participate with the freedom in a society that actually supports strong personal, social, and economic rights for everybody. I want to acknowledge the Prime Minister when she describes our Government as a Government that represents all of New Zealand.

Perhaps the voters voted for us because we have a five-point plan, and I want to remind the House of the objective of those plans. The objective of anything is knowing why we do what we do, and what does that look like? I just want to remind everybody, reflecting on the challenging of COVID-19 and the need to tackle New Zealand’s long-term issues, this Labour Government on this side will have three overarching objectives. Before I get into our objectives, I want to acknowledge the many, many lives throughout the world who are affected by COVID-19 and that we are in a very privileged position because of the leadership of this Government, of Jacinda Ardern and our Deputy Prime Minister, Grant Robertson.

Those three objectives are to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, to accelerate our economic recovery, and to lay the foundations for a better future. So how do we get there? Keeping New Zealand safe from COVID-19, we have got five-point action plans, and the five-point action plan is about investing in our people, putting people at the heart of our plan. I can say I have been honoured and privileged to be selected by the Labour Party to be Labour’s candidate in Papakura. When I talk about people voting for this Government, the Labour Government, I want to acknowledge every person in Papakura, because I have met people who have said to me, “It is the first time that I have given my party vote to Labour, and it’s the first time that I’ve done that because I believe New Zealand is better off in a Labour Government.” I want to remind us of why that is. They remind us that it is about investing in our people and it’s about jobs, creating jobs not just for today but for our future, preparing for our future, supporting small businesses, and, of course, positioning us globally.

I’m almost running out of time, but I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the role that I have been privileged to be voted into by our Pacific caucus. We now have 10 members of Pacific in Labour, and I want to thank New Zealand for that. Last night, we had an ‘ava ceremony, which is a Samoan traditional custom of reminding those who have been voted in of their responsibility to the people, and I want to congratulate all five, including the one first ever member of the Green Party who is Pacific. I want to acknowledge that. New Zealand, it’s come far, and as the chair for the Pacific caucus, I am privileged to contribute to the Government’s plan. This is a Government that will have every New Zealander’s wellbeing in mind. Mālō.

I call Marja Lubeck—five minutes.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Like those before me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on your elevation to Deputy Speaker, the other presiding officers, and also all my new colleagues—in particular, the two members of Parliament north of the bridge, Vanushi Walters and Shanan Halbert, who both won their electorates, and I’m looking forward to having some more troops in that area of the country. I know there’s something about reflecting at the end of the year, and as I’m sure we all do at this time, we are thinking back on 2020 and how tough it’s been on many people.

So, as these are my first words back into the 53rd Parliament, I would like to use the opportunity to thank our essential workers who kept New Zealand going under the most stressful of circumstances. I’m talking about our cleaners, our supermarket workers, our health workers, our security guards, our rubbish collectors, our bus drivers, and many, many others. Also, of course, the businesses and the workers who had to go through the most challenging circumstances to keep themselves going in a changed world. A special thanks also to all of our flight crews, our cabin crew, and our staff in the isolation facilities. Now, they have been mentioned before, but these groups of workers make a lot of sacrifices to keep us New Zealanders, and also New Zealand, safe. They follow the protocols, they are isolated from their family and from their friends, they have more tests than the average worker out there, while they’re waiting for the results they have to distance from their family and from their friends. Yet many of those workers feel demonised by the community. So I would just like to acknowledge the sacrifices that these people are making.

At a time when other countries are still reporting thousands of COVID-related cases every day and many, many deaths, we are here able to pretty much lead normal lives. We saw it when we had the Speech from the Throne, we’re all sitting together in this room, we hug each other when our new colleagues are doing their maiden speeches. This is something that many, many other countries couldn’t even dream of. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I worry about my family on the other side of the world in the Netherlands where COVID is still claiming so many lives every day. Nine thousand people have died so far in a country that’s the size of Northland; it’s only about three times the population of New Zealand. So we should really be counting our blessings.

Now, when we look at the three objectives that my colleague Anahila Kanongata’a-Suisuiki mentioned beforehand, this is very much in line with keeping New Zealanders free from COVID-19 as a first objective. We went hard and early with our health response, and that basically gave us a really good opportunity to kick off our economic response. That gets to the second overarching objective, which is accelerating our economic recovery. But that recovery plan is not really just about getting back to where we were before, but about building back better. It’s also about addressing some of those long-term challenges that we have had in New Zealand, and that plan is already under way. It’s based on five core points. It’s based around jobs, it’s based around people, it’s based on preparing for the future by taking on those challenges that I mentioned so that we can build back better. It’s about supporting small businesses, about supporting entrepreneurs, and it’s also about positioning ourselves globally so that this is a place that people want to invest in and trade with.

The global economic impact will be felt through New Zealand, but we are placed very well because, as our finance Minister explained previously, we started paying down debt and running surpluses from the very moment that we came into office. That’s given us a head start, and so we are able to keep accelerating our economic recovery.

That really brings me to the third objective, which is to lay the foundations for a better future. Minister Robertson mentioned this in the Budget speech, and he mentioned it in his speech just earlier on when we kicked off this part of the debate. He said the sentence—and it stayed with me because it really goes to the core of what we’re about, and it talks about a “glimmer of silver lining on the darkest of clouds”, and that is about our country having an opportunity to build back better. What our response to COVID-19 does is give us exactly that opportunity.

Now, New Zealanders voted for stability and certainty this election, and it’s absolutely humbling to be part of the first majority Government under MMP in New Zealand, which obviously is led by a Prime Minister who unites and has led our country through so many crises and tough times this year. We won’t solve all of our problems overnight, but what we have done is we’ve laid the foundations for change in our first term, and we are heading in the right direction. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I call Melissa Lee—five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’d like to begin this session by congratulating you, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, on your elevation to the Chair, and to also extend the congratulations to your fellow presiding officers. I look forward to fair adjudication in this House, as we expect from good speakers like yourself. Once again, congratulations.

I would also like to extend my congratulations to the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan on her elevation to Minister for Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities. However, I’m a little bit saddened that it is the first time in this House where the Minister of Diversity, Inclusion and Ethnic Communities is outside Cabinet. I’m a little bit sad about that, but I know that she will be very able in her execution of her role, and I will support her, as a member of the ethnic community. I look forward to meeting her at many ethnic community events, which I’m sure will actually keep her very, very busy indeed.

I’d like to now go to the comments that were made by some of the members opposite, and also I’d like to congratulate all of the new members of Parliament, by the way. I heard some of the speeches last week, and I just wanted to congratulate some of the members who are present in this House.

Earlier, the Hon David Clark was talking about how there were five-point plans that this Government had, but I didn’t quite hear the five-point plans, actually. What he went on about was investing in people. He talked about our students—you know, we needed to invest in our people, and that was one of the tenets of this Government. I think what the Speech from the Throne was talking about, futureproofing of the economy, accelerating the recovery—these are words; these are not actual plans. To me, when people talk about investing in the future and our students, it is talking about education outcomes, and we can say that the fact is in the last three years, when our students graduated from high school, they did worse than the cohorts that went before them. They are worse off in their reading, writing, and maths, and this is something that we need to actually focus on. They are getting worse, and this Government has actually failed in their attempt to do better.

Earlier, the member from the Green Party—the co-leader the Hon James Shaw—was talking in his speech, and I found his speech rather ironic. He talked about the lack of infrastructure, including the mouldering schools, he said, and yet he was part of the Government—he was a Minister of the Government—that actually delivered, apparently, on those infrastructures, or lack thereof, to those schools that he was talking about that had failed. He is actually making a judgment of his own performance for not delivering for New Zealanders, and yet he’s also responsible for the $12 million of funding to the Green School, that is growing crystals. How many of those infrastructures that he thinks that we should be funding could have been funded out of that $12 million that he actually gave out?

Sinking millions on consultants is something that this Government actually does well. You know, they sank millions—actually hundreds of millions—on consultants and working groups and advisory panels. They sank millions on the slow train to the airport on Dominion Road that I’m still wondering what’s happened to. That’s the kind of advancement that this Government is talking about. The plan should really be a plan, and I have not heard details of their plan; just fancy words.

How are they going to reduce debt—the debt that we’re going to be lumping on our children, our future generations, which this Government seems to think is actually OK. Debt is fast-growing. It is one of the most significant things that we need to worry about in this country. Government doesn’t make money. Government does not earn an income—well, they do, actually, through taxes. The hard-earned taxes that people actually pay is how Governments spend, and this Government is set on spending millions and billions of the hard-earned cash of our taxpayers and completely wasting that. I hope that they will stay focused and do some work.

I want to talk about a grave and serious challenge facing New Zealand that was not addressed in anywhere near the substance New Zealanders have a right to expect in the Speech from the Throne, and that issue is housing. In a time of crisis, with some of the most unaffordable house prices in the world, rapidly reducing rates of homeownership, and more than 20,000 New Zealanders waiting in urgent need of a State house, with an average waiting time of more than 240 days, what did the Government have to say about its plans for housing in this term of Government? Well, I’m afraid to tell you there was an absence of fresh thinking, and it is instructive to compare the Speech from the Throne from this Parliament with that from the 2017 Parliament.

In 2017, housing was described by the Labour-led Government as a top priority. Well, I’m afraid to let you know that it’s now just a priority. In 2017, 12 specific commitments were made to address the housing crisis; in this year’s speech, just nine, and let me tell you what was absolutely missing from that Speech from the Throne: a mention of KiwiBuild. Is it any wonder, because Labour came into Government saying that KiwiBuild would be the solution to New Zealand’s housing woes and, as I stand here today, only just over 600 KiwiBuild houses have been built. That’s less than 4 percent of the 16,000 that were promised—a demonstrable and disgraceful failure. Labour said that a capital gains tax would be a solution to New Zealand’s housing woes, and that, of course, didn’t even get off the ground.

So what have we had instead of new ideas about housing? Well, this week, we have had the shameful spectacle of the Prime Minister playing the blame game. First, it’s National’s fault, then it’s foreigners—because foreigners were investing too much in the housing market, apparently—then it’s people with Chinese-sounding names, and, actually, this week we’ve learnt that the public should bear responsibility for the housing crisis because they didn’t like Labour’s tax plan. Well, this is not the attitude that the people I speak to want to see in a newly elected Government. What they want to see from a newly elected Government is fresh thinking, a sense of responsibility for constructively addressing this major challenge, and what they don’t want to see is a Government that whenever faced with the question of housing, thinks this is an excuse for another sneaky new tax. That is absolutely not what Labour were elected to do.

The scale of the challenge is immense. In the three years since Labour were first elected to Government, the median house has earned more than the median earner—that is, median house prices have gone up by $200,000, and those who own those houses have earned more from them than workers on the median wage earned. We have seen houses get more and more out of reach, so what I commit to do is to help the Government out because what they need are constructive ideas, not just recycling old plans for new taxes.

The Government should be pursuing innovative ideas to encourage a surge in new house building: strengthening the national policy statement on urban development to bring urgent rezoning in our major urban cities forward; removing the Auckland urban boundary, as promised in the Speech from the Throne in 2017, but conspicuously absent this time around; making Kāinga Ora capital available to community housing providers—because it is not just the State that can build and supply social housing; why not partner with proven providers such as the Salvation Army to get those shovel-ready plans under way right now?

Establish a housing infrastructure fund: let’s help local government finance the pipes and roads needed to get new subdivisions under way straight away, and let’s be creative and implement new finance models. We are spending literally billions on the accommodation supplement and income-related rents. Let’s repurpose them to drive new housing developments.

You want ideas? Come see National. They were absent in the Address in Reply debate.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s been a wet few days in Wellington, and I feel sorry for those who’ve had their houses flooded. I have to say, I feel like I’m drowning in crocodile tears in this place here. Those speeches, the last two speeches from the National Party talking about housing—this is a former Government that sold State houses. It ignored the crisis, and then it promised to reform the Resource Management Act and did nothing. I’ll keep swimming in these crocodile tears.

I just want to take the opportunity in the first time to speak in this new Parliament to, firstly, say thank you to a whole lot of people. We are very lucky to be here. We are lucky to have had a robust election process. We are lucky to be able to interact as a country in a way that very few other places in the world can do. I have to thank, firstly, New Zealanders for behaving through lockdown, for adhering to the rules that we asked them to adhere to. To the essential workers, and we can’t thank them enough—many who continue to work through into the managed isolation and quarantine facilities—thank you very, very much.

Can I thank the Kiwis who trusted the Labour Party to take them forward because they want certainty, they want security, and they believe that we are the best party to do that. We have said—as the Prime Minister has said in the speech—we will be here for all New Zealanders, not just for the select few that are often the beneficiaries of a National Government.

I just want to take the opportunity to thank all my colleagues, my former ministerial colleagues and their oversight, and the Prime Minister, of course, and one other person—Norm—who has been thanked, actually. Norm is Sarah Stuart-Black, who’s been head of emergency management in our country for some time. She’s moving to the Red Cross. There’s a thankyou going on in Parliament now. I want to also say thank you for her work and to her family for giving her to us and her time.

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata—Māori have taught us what is the most important thing in the world, and when we get got hit by COVID, that is indeed what we did. We firstly looked after the health of New Zealanders, and we continue to focus on that as the number one priority for this Government, because all the criticisms that we had in those times that we had to look after business and we had to make sure that people can move around and all the other things—well, you can go and look around the world and see the countries that didn’t put their people first. I’m proud to be part of a Government that did and still does put people first. We’ll continue to work to keep people safe from COVID. The world is full of it. We’re thankful that there is a vaccine or some vaccines in the wind—that’s great—but until that time, we have to keep our borders secure. We have to ensure that our health system is not overrun by infection from COVID.

We have to prepare for a better future. It’s not just good enough to think that we’d get back to where we were; we have to get ahead of the game. As a country that is now respected internationally for what we have done, we have a huge opportunity ahead of us to say that we can be, if not the best country in the world—and many of us think that—but the best country for the world, showing and leading by example. As we move into 2021, the year of APEC, we will be hosting 21 economies coming together to look at the challenging issues ahead of us, not just in the areas of COVID but in trade and protectionism, working through how we share the best knowledge to tackle climate change, to tackle the issues of poverty, and to ensure that people have security as we go forward. We are well positioned to do that off the back of what we have done. Thank you, New Zealand—thank each and every one of you—for what you are doing.

We will need to support small business. We need to ensure that it’s not just the big players who seize the opportunities from a crisis. Crisis has impacted many, many New Zealanders and we’ve stepped in with direct support and indirect support. The people who might benefit as we go forward must be those people who committed themselves to a better future. We have to ensure that New Zealand is positioned in a global world in a place of respect and with a reputation where people want to knock on our door to buy our goods because they want to be a part of us and because they want to understand how, as a bicultural nation, we can succeed through the challenges, and there have been many of those challenges. I believe that the APEC year next year—300 meetings with the world’s leaders and with other ministers around—will provide us with that opportunity to put us on the stage.

I have to say that I’m honoured to have a couple of new areas of responsibility, and the one of trade, of course, is a very important one for a small trading nation. We rely absolutely on trade. As Minister of Agriculture, we’ve always been very proud of our position and our export earnings. In spite of all the best efforts of many Governments over many years, the primary sectors continue to be the largest single part of our export and wealth creation. That’s wonderful, and what we are doing in the areas of agriculture and primary production is moving to more sustainable practices. We’ve seen rapid growth, and we’ve all benefited from that, but there have been pressures on the environment, pressures on the workforce, and pressures on local infrastructure. We need to make some improvements to ensure that those people who invest their lives and their capital and their expertise and their families in the areas of private production can see a sustainable return on that into the future.

We’ve got to sell what we produce, and so can I firstly acknowledge the former Minister for Trade and Export Growth, the Hon David Parker, and all the great work he did. In a very short time after taking over that role, he managed to negotiate and get over the line the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive agreement that was stuck prior to his intervention and the Prime Minister’s intervention in Da Nang—thank you for that work. We’ve continued to move forward to the point where, a couple of weeks ago, we signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, an agreement with a third of the world’s population to put in place some fair trading rules that mean that those entrepreneurs who want to invest in new services or goods to export to a third of the world’s population, where over 50 percent of our existing trade goes to, know what the rules are and can have them upheld. I think we’ve made some great progress.

I want to thank the primary sectors for increasing their export revenue through challenging times. In the year to the end of October, we’ve seen a 6.5 percent increase—sorry. Sorry, I go back—that’s just for dairy, actually. Can I go back to a 1.2 percent goods increase in the October month. That is really, really important, because elsewhere around the world, we are facing some protectionism. We are seeing countries in the face of COVID say that we’ve got to protect our local people—and, indeed, we can understand that—but when it comes to issues like food security, then New Zealand plays a key role in supplementing what some countries can’t produce for themselves. I’d like to acknowledge Singapore and, again, my colleague Mr Parker for negotiating an agreement early on in COVID that gave food security for them and pharmaceutical products for us. It’s through those trading relationships that we can have more security as we move into the future.

Very briefly, I said about the agricultural sector moving into a more sustainable space. We, over the last three years, have set out a vision and planned for agriculture: Fit for a Better World. That plan is timely and it’s well positioned to ensure that every one of those people who operate and work in those primary sectors can move down the same path to coordinate and cooperate all their efforts. We’ve put $200 million extra into New Zealand Trade and Enterprise offshore, so that they can help the very people who are creating those jobs, creating that wealth and those export products, and sending it offshore. We have, I think, as a country and as a Government, done very, very well, and I think there is international recognition of all of that.

I want to round up again by coming back to the challenges that we face around child poverty, around housing, and climate change in our own country. We have a programme. We have a plan. The laissez-faire approach that the National Party takes—and ACT—will sit back and leave it to the market, as some kind of head-in-the-sand stuff that has been disproven and discredited time and time again. What we need is a good plan going forward, and this Government has a plan to tackle the issues of climate change to ensure we have a robust and a very good reputation, with integrity, offshore to make sure that our people in the country get good returns for their efforts, whatever place they play in the horticultural sectors or in any of our industries. People need a decent income to have a decent life in this country.

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. This Government will always focus on what is most important, first and foremost. Thank you.

I call the Hon Paul Goldsmith—a five-minute call.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, and congratulations on your high office this evening. It’s my pleasure to speak in this debate and to be back here in the Parliament.

I want to start with congratulations to the Labour Party. It was a great result for them. You have gained the support of the public in this election and you have to carry the burden of expectations that comes with that, and this country faces real challenges right now.

We’ve got through towards the end of what has been a very difficult year for many New Zealanders. They’ve put their faith in this Government, and they will be hoping to see some real progress on the big challenges that we face, particularly on the economy. It’s all very well to have a false sense of security when we’re borrowing a billion dollars a week and the printing presses are running very quickly over at the Reserve Bank. That may give a short-term sense of security, but, ultimately, we have to have a strong economy that’s really creating jobs and is genuinely internationally competitive. This Government has chosen to increase taxes, and so it will be interesting to see how that works out.

We’re also going to be relying on private sector investment to grow the economy and create jobs. What we’re seeing in so many places is additional costs being added on to those businesses, making it more difficult for them to create those jobs, and so we’ll be watching that very closely.

Then we’ll be thinking about the infrastructure that needs to be built during these difficult times. We’re just hoping that the new Minister of Transport—up in Auckland, anyway, we’re hoping that the new Minister of Transport isn’t quite so obsessed with the funny light rail scheme that his predecessor had as the number one priority for Auckland. Anybody living in Auckland is still scratching their heads as to why a slow tram down Dominion Road should be the priority for the biggest investment in infrastructure in our history.

On housing, what we’re seeing, of course, is a real challenge for, particularly, young New Zealanders as they look and see the yard being lifted higher into housing affordability. We have an unseemly episode of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Minister of Finance pointing their fingers at each other for responsibility. There’s no question that increasing the supply of houses is the best solution, but you can’t do that overnight. You can’t do it in a year. It takes time, so, in the meantime, our flooding the country with cash at very low interest rates is adding fuel to what is a raging fire already.

So I’ll be very interested to see how the Minister responds effectively to that issue—which they were so, so critical of the previous National Government about; yet, after three years, have not made much progress on—and we want to work constructively to make some of that progress. At the same time, the Reserve Bank is flooding all this extra cash in order to encourage investment when the Government is making it much more difficult for businesses to actually grow and to hire people.

In the meantime, I’ve been granted the wonderful privilege of working in the education sector, and coming from a household of teachers, I have a keen sense of it. My father was a maths teacher. He had three siblings. Of the four children in my father’s family, three were teachers and one was an anaesthetist, and, of course, there was always a bit of a joke as to who put you to sleep faster of those four.

But, nevertheless, I have huge respect for the teaching profession. It is a very difficult profession, trying to inspire children, young men and women, girls and boys, to love learning and to learn. I think of some of the inspirational teachers that I had. Bob Hunt at Auckland Grammar had a glass eye, and you were never quite sure where he was looking. But he was the one who turned the light on in me and, for the first time, made me passionate about learning a particular subject—Japanese, it was.

So I’m looking forward to working constructively with the sector in what is such an important area for the future of the country: making sure that our young men and women, when they leave school, are able to contribute and succeed in the modern world with basic literacy and numeracy. One of the things that I’ll be very focused on is the absolutely appalling attendance records at school at the moment. It’s an astonishing fact that only around 57 percent of school kids are actually at school on a regular basis. We need to do much, much better, and so that will be an initial focus of mine. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I call the Hon Scott Simpson—for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a pleasure it is to follow a former Auckland Grammar old boy in the shape and form of the Hon Paul Goldsmith, and I can remember actually being taught—or Paul Goldsmith’s father actually did try and teach me—maths. I’m not so sure whether he was successful—

💬 Hon Member: It’s his fault!

—or not, but maybe it was Goldsmith Snr’s fault.

But look, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, can I commence by congratulating you on your appointment, and your fellow presiding officers. You’ve got a big job to do in this 53rd Parliament, and here on the Opposition benches we’re looking forward to working cooperatively with you.

I want to pick up on the theme that several of my colleagues have pursued, which is to congratulate the Government on their election victory. We’ve seen in the term of my lifetime some very significant political swings and cycles over a period of time, and New Zealand voters do produce results like this from time to time. But one thing I can assure the current Government is that cycles do turn and they turn quite quickly, particularly if Governments don’t perform, and this Government now has no excuses. This Government has no excuses for the lack of delivery, the lack of performance, the lack of vision, their lack of aspiration, and the lack of hope for New Zealanders that they produced during their first three years in office.

So it was with some excitement and anticipation that we marched out of this Chamber last week to hear the Speech from the Throne, a speech that is designed to present to the nation and to the Parliament the Government’s agenda for the next three years, and what did we find? Almost nothing—almost no detail, no aspiration, no hope, no sense of transformation.

Transformation’s gone. Transformation used to be the catchcry of this Government, and now the catchcry appears to be little more than tinkering. They’ve gone from aspiration to air dancing and that’s really all they’re good for—a little bit of shadow-boxing, but nothing specific; no detail, no aspiration, and nothing to sort of hang their hats on—and, unlike the first Speech from the Throne from this Labour Government, there was no mention of the Kermadec ocean sanctuary. There was no mention of cameras on fishing boats. There was no mention of a ban on mining on the conservation estate. I guess that those are things that have simply slipped through their fingers, no more to be of concern or hope for them.

There’s no action on reducing waste to landfill. A lot of warm fuzzy words from the previous Green Minister who had delegated responsibility through her associate environment spokesperson-ship, but nothing in the Speech from the Throne about those sorts of things, and, particularly, no mention at all about the need for technological, biological, breakthrough technology in terms of predator control and the sort of science and technology that is now available to us. Nothing ambitious, nothing on the horizon at all, to solve some of those important issues.

Yes, there was some talk of Resource Management Act reform, but we’ve heard all that before. I want to again reiterate the comments of the National Party leader—the Leader of the Opposition, Judith Collins—who has said that on this side of the House, we actually do want to work with the Government on Resource Management Act reform. We want to do that because we know how important it is to get it right, not just for our natural environment, but also for our built environment. Right at the minute, we all know in this House that the current legislative framework isn’t working for either our natural environment or our built environment, and we can do so much better. But that’s a big job and the risk that this current Government has is that under the Minister for the Environment, David Parker, it’s likely to be a situation where we end up with a bundle of statutes that are worse than we have now. So watch out for that.

I want to just take a minute to finish in talking about the workplace relations scenario that confronts us. Small businesses, in particular, in New Zealand are being bashed relentlessly by this Government, who insists on inflicting more and more costs upon them. This Government seems to have a view that businesses can have an infinite capacity to absorb cost. Well, the sad news is that they don’t. So an extra week’s sick leave, an extra public holiday, fair-pay agreements—these sorts of things that are driven largely by the agenda of the trade union movement and that now appear to be on the work programme of this current Government all add cost. None of it adds to productivity, and these small businesses, rather than taking on new staff, are at risk of putting staff off because they can only adjust their costs if they have to.

So I’m looking forward to this Parliament.

I call the Hon Kiritapu Allan—a five-minute call.

Madam Assistant Speaker, he tino hōnore ki te mihi ki a koe mō tō tūranga hōu mō tēnei Pāremata. Anei he mihi maioha ki a koe mō tō kaiwhakahaere o tēnei Whare. Nō reira kei a koe, e te mema o Waitaki, ānei he mihi ki a koe. Otirā, ki ngā mema hōu o te Whare nei, tino harikoa te ngākau ki te kite i a koutou kua haramai ki te whakapūawai ngā hiahia o tō koutou whānau, o tō koutou iwi, o tō koutou hapori katoa. Heoi anō, māku e tautoko te kōrero o ngā mema ki mua—nau mai, haramai, whakatau mai. Horo mai ō whakaaro, ō ringa ki te whiu atu, whai atu, tautoko atu tō tātou nei whānau. Nō reira ki a koutou. Nau mai, haramai, whakatau mai.

[Madam Assistant Speaker, it is an honour to congratulate you on your new position in this Parliament. This is my heartfelt congratulations to you for your running the House. Well done to you, the MP for Waitaki, congratulations. To the new members of this House, I am very happy to see all of you who have made it here to fulfil the wishes of your family, your tribe, and your community. I support what previous speakers have said—welcome, welcome, welcome. Bring with you your ideas and your hard work to throw forth, to pursue, and to support our families. So, to you all—welcome, welcome, welcome.]

I am so excited. I don’t know if you can start this way, but I don’t care. It’s my first speech of the 53rd Parliament, and I am so excited to be here, in this House. It is such an incredible honour to be able to take your place in this Whare.

For me, it is my first time on my feet as the member of Parliament for the mighty, mighty, mighty East Coast. I must say, I couldn’t be more delighted than to hold that title. I want to thank the constituents of that pito o te ao—that place that is my home—for putting their faith, their trust, and their confidence in me.

I look across this House, and, indeed, during question time today, and, again, the new members that have joined us—they impress me incredibly, the walks that they come from, whether they be from that side or this side of the House. But I am so excited about the lives that they have lived before coming into this place. I am so excited about the contributions that you will add to this House. I have done nothing but skite about the new talent that, in particular, has been added to this side of the House, and I must say that I still feel giddy, although it feels like the election was a long time ago now.

For us on this side of the House, we lost a couple of people that were really near and dear to us. I want to acknowledge the whānau of my good friend Rudy Taylor and, in particular, the new member here, Shanan Halbert, who will give his maiden speech today—the new member for Northcote. He was an incredible mentor to my good friend but, indeed, he was a mentor and colleague to all of us. I want to acknowledge his wife, Kaye Taylor, and all of their whānau up there in the Hokianga.

I too want to acknowledge the passing of the mother of my good friend Tane Phillips, the day of the election—actually, it was just the morning after the election. Tane Phillips is the Māori vice-president for our party. He is a constituent in my electorate from the mighty place of Kawerau, and his family are all members of my Labour electorate committee. But his mother’s passing was indeed a shock for all of us, so I want to throw my thoughts to him as well, and, again, to the passing of the father of our good mate here, Shanan: Winston Halbert, who passed the day of, I think, the election. So, my friend—who will commence his journey in this House in a couple of moments’ time—just know that he has left a huge impression on all of us, and I know that he will guide you as you commence your journey here.

Hoi anō, here we are in this 53rd Parliament, and as the Prime Minister gave her speech the other day, there was a clear mandate that has been given to this House, and that is not something that this side of the House takes lightly. The voters of Aotearoa New Zealand, they have voted for stability. They have voted for certainty. They have voted for cohesion. They have voted for a team with a plan. We went to the electorate with a very clear plan about how we would rebuild as a nation from that which has been the last year of COVID19.

Madam Speaker, you heard that there were three very clear objectives for this Government as we come into the 53rd Parliament: first, to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, and that will be an ongoing journey for all of us. Now, as I cast my mind out to my colleagues living across the world right now, they will be saying to me, “Kiritapu, you do not understand what it is that you have in Aotearoa New Zealand. You are walking the streets, you are playing sports, you are breaking bread—you are in communion with your community.” That is something we have vowed: to do our valiant best to take care of our community and keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19.

Secondly, the Prime Minister gave a very clear indication that our priority was on accelerating our economic recovery. That is something that we went to the electorate on. In the mighty East Coast, my colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri and I—we stomped up and down our electorate in the mighty East Coast looking at where this Government has invested in our future generations so that we can accelerate our economic recovery. I want to turn to that in a moment because it’s something I’m very passionate about: Jobs for Nature, in my portfolio as Minister of Conservation. So I’ll come back to that in a second.

Thirdly, there was a very clear directive that we have that is about laying the foundations for our future. Now, there’s one thing that I think we got a really clear direction from, and that came through the Speech from the Throne. This Government is not about doing business as usual (BAU). We’re not here to do BAU, because it’s always easy and it’s been done and it’s been done; we have been given a clear mandate to make radical change for our communities that need it the most. With such incredible turbulence and change that COVID-19 has brought, so too, in turn, must we all pivot.

Now, I want to speak specifically about what we are doing in, particularly, the portfolio of conservation. I want to acknowledge my good friends the Green Party—Te Roopu Kākāriki o Aotearoa. I want to acknowledge my good friend the Hon Eugenie Sage, who put her hand to the till, alongside my colleague the Hon David Parker, and supported, again, by the Minister of Finance. They have invested $1.3 billion in the Jobs for Nature programme, and I see that as fulfilling two key components in, one, our economic recovery and, two, investing in our future, and I want to walk briefly through that.

We have been given an opportunity with this particular fund to create what I see as a new generation of environmental warriors that we can clad and support. I guess we all know climate change is on our doorstep. Papatūānuku is demanding something different from us right now. It is demanding that we change the way that we have lived in days gone by. We’ve committed to those things like no more extraction of fossil fuels offshore and we’re committing to climate targets, but, in turn, we have an opportunity with this fund in Jobs for Nature to create a whole generation that is passionate and that we clad with the skills, the abilities, and the technical expertise to come into a new career and new future that is based around the sustainability of our taiao, and I am incredibly excited by that.

Just last week, I had the opportunity of supporting the aspirations of Te Āti Awa ki Whakarongotai, just north of here, in and around Ōtaki. The mana whenua—and my good friend the new member of Parliament for, what’s it called?

💬 Barbara Edmonds: Mana.

Mana. I’m sure she’ll be very proud that this is in her patch, as well. But what we are doing is we are taking that investment from that Jobs for Nature fund. We are working on the partnership alongside the stewards of the whenua, working alongside those that have expertise in the area, and we are building up and we are investing in the future generations that can come, by creating jobs—by becoming kaitiaki to those places that they call home.

I mentioned just prior that alongside my good colleague the Hon Meka Whaitiri, just recently—oh look, and we’re almost at an end. I want to quickly end on Titirangi Maunga, the incredible work that has been done there stewarded by Charlotte Gibson, but investing in 17 young people to be kaitiaki of Titirangi.

This is an exciting time. Tēnā koe.

It’s a pleasure to be talking in this Parliament, again, and it doesn’t seem like so long ago we were doing that. Can I just acknowledge and welcome the new members. It’s very exciting to see so many new faces. Can I acknowledge the last speaker, the Hon Kiritapu Allan. I thought she was full of energy. A very kinetic presentation, I thought, and—

💬 Hon Kiritapu Allan: I like that.

—that was good to see. Look it up, I think I’ve got the right word. Could be wrong—we’ll see.

Could I also acknowledge you, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, and congratulate you on your role. I know you’ll do it with aplomb. You’re a very experienced member, and we really, as I say, wish you well in it.

I want to speak and have a conversation, really, about the context in which this Government finds itself and the next three years that we have before us in this Parliament. I think the truth is that we start this Parliament with the economy stronger than most economists thought was going to be the case at the start of the year. The $14 billion in wage subsidies probably had something to do with that—I don’t know—but there’s been a lot of money pumped in. The pundits weren’t right, and that’s a good thing. But I do wonder, when the finance Minister and the Reserve Bank Governor are literally printing $100 billion—one third of our economy’s GDP—

💬 David Seymour: Why didn’t we think of it earlier?

Exactly—when they’re doing that, where’s it all going to end? You know, as my good friend David Seymour says, why didn’t we think of that earlier? Well, maybe it’s because, actually, Social Credit weren’t right. What we’ve seen in the past shows that it doesn’t work, and eventually—maybe not this term, maybe this term, but some time this decade—it’s going to catch up with the world.

I was reading a thing. They’re calling it modern monetary theory, and I think the reality is that if it sounds too good to be true—borrowing yet more money; billions and billions and billions—actually, it is. My great fear is that with a Government on that side of the House that says they’re about inequality and dealing with hard issues like housing and poverty—actually, with policies like that, they will be entrenching inequality in this country.

On this side of the House, we, or certainly I, believe in smaller government. I think the reality is that it’s businesses—not them over there—that make this country great. They get out every day, work hard, take risks, and respond to incentives, and bills like this one this evening put up the tax rate and bills like later this week that simply slap on more cost on small and medium sized business around this country aren’t going to work.

Ronald Reagan said a long time ago—well, it must have been a long time ago—that “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help.” were the scariest few words in the English language. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I do think, actually, a Government that’s got less red tape and less tax and that isn’t borrowing so much in the long-term interest of our country has got to be a better thing for this country, and I worry, actually, that we forget our freedoms sometimes. We’re very complacent about them economically and also politically.

I want to say, look, there’s some big issues in the world today. COVID-19—heaven forbid, don’t sort of stone me—I don’t think that’s the biggest issue in the world today, actually. I think the reality of it is that it’s a big issue, but there’s a vaccine on the way, and we’re very optimistic about that.

Dare I say it, I don’t even think that climate change is the biggest issue in the world today. Don’t get me wrong—and don’t call the Human Rights Commission, all right? I mean, I know that’s probably hate speech, or it will be by the end of this Parliament, but I think that issues like China and the US and the real potential, given a more aggressive China, for the misunderstanding in the room for that—it’s a real issue. I look at what’s happening with Australia and their wine tariffs with real concern, and, actually, I think, for countries like New Zealand, it’s a case of united we stand, divided we fall.

So predictions: I think there are three scenarios for this Labour Government. They might be bold, but I think we can discount that straight away. I don’t think there’s really any chance of that, given our Prime Minister and Grant Robertson’s temperament, and, actually, dare I say it, a bunch of New Zealanders—farmers and other middle New Zealanders—who lent them their vote will be watching them very carefully. I don’t think they’ll be bold.

There’s a chance they’ll do nothing, and, actually, if we look at this week, when we’re going to be debating climate change—it’s so urgent that they didn’t do it last week. Actually, they put it off today and we’ll do it tomorrow, and, when we get round to it, all we’ll do is have a chat, right? That’s literally what we’re going to do, because the reality is that the Government hasn’t done much on that.

I think the reality is something in the middle. They’ll roll along not doing much, but with spurts here and there, and let me tell the members opposite something: the National Party will be there to hold you to account in the interest of New Zealanders.

The Hon David Bennett—five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, and I’d just like to acknowledge you in your success in attaining that role. It’s well-deserved, and I know you’ll be a fair and impartial Speaker and we look forward to working with you.

I remember three years ago, I took this moment in a 10-minute speech to talk about socialism, and I mentioned it about 56 times. I won’t try and mention it as many times today, but I’ve got another word—capitalism—which is a much better word, which we will mention a lot more times in this speech.

The history of the world shows that in times of a crisis like COVID, the last thing a country needs to do is revert to socialism as its answer. Look at Japan, Germany, South Korea, Vietnam—all embraced capitalism and they are the most successful countries in the world. Countries like New Zealand and Britain, which embraced socialism, have now the problem that they go through a spurt every 20 or 30 years where they have to do a major capitalist reform to pick up where they’ve lost out. Otherwise, they fall further and further down the track against other comparable countries. New Zealand is about to embrace the last period of socialism before we have to have another capitalist reform, because the socialism on that side will create the problems that will force a capitalist revolution in this country. That will happen, and there will be a new type of pro-capitalism, a new form of capitalism which will evolve in New Zealand in the next period of time. It may well come from the housing market or it may well come from those overseas pressures, but there will be a new form of capitalism coming, and it’s not far away.

It’s going to be a country that’s going to have open immigration, where we value and we bring in people that bring skills to this country, and we don’t stop people, like the Labour Party over that side has. New capitalism will welcome people. New capitalism will actually build the infrastructure for our country. We won’t have the Soviet-style roading projects under this Government, which are taking 10 years to build something that should have been built in three years. We will actually have a new capitalist environment which will build things, and a new capitalist environment that looks at Hamilton, Auckland, and Tauranga and sees that as an economic vehicle that can compete with the eastern seaboard of Australia, and Sydney and Melbourne, and we create a golden triangle between those three places.

We’ll see a new capitalism that has more technology, where we embrace technology. We welcome technology into this country, and we make this country the most technologically smart and successful country in the world, and we don’t hold back on it. A new capitalism which actually supports our farmers and works with them and our growers to make sure that they are the economic engine of this country. We realise our economic potential but we also realise our competitive advantage, and we don’t cut them off at their knees—we actually let them perform. They will meet market desires and needs, but they need to be given the chance to do that in a productive way.

A new capitalism would reduce government significantly. There is no need for big government like we have now. There is no need for this country to borrow endlessly just to support government and the wishes of the Labour Party.

In a new capitalist environment, we would actually have lower taxes. There should be lower taxes for New Zealanders going forward. We shouldn’t be increasing taxes at a time when we need to encourage people to invest, to take risks, and to be aspirational for this country so that they can provide the jobs that actually provide the future for New Zealand.

In a new capitalism, we’re going to actually support Māori business aspirations so that Māori can take advantage of not only their people but also their land and the opportunities they have in the trade. A new capitalist environment would develop modern environmental solutions that are fitting for New Zealand but take our country forward and represent the views of our people.

We’d look at new trade agreements under modern, new capitalism but, most importantly of all, the new capitalism that will arise from this terrible Labour Government will be one that actually looks forward as aspirational for New Zealanders and that actually makes sure that we back our people to take a chance and move forward. That is the future of New Zealand.

Socialism will die with this Government. After that, we will have to go through that revolution we always go through each generation that brings us back to the situation where we actually can fight and compete in a modern world.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, ngā mema hōu o te Whare nei, tēnā koutou. Ngā mema katoa—ka nui te mihi ki a koutou katoa. Tēnā tātou katoa.

[To the new members of this House, congratulations. To all the members—greetings and salutations to you all. Thank you.]

I’m pleased to take a call in this Address in Reply debate. Can I firstly acknowledge yourself, Madam Assistant Speaker Dean, and the presiding officers. I congratulate you all and look forward to your combined wisdom and your guidance in the 53rd Parliament, so ngā mihi ki a koe. To the new MPs, in my brief opening address, can I acknowledge you all. It is indeed a privilege, as you will find out—serving in this House—so I sincerely congratulate you all for being here.

Last night, I joined the Pacific caucus in acknowledging our Pacific new MPs, and I want to say it is pleasing to be part of not only a Labour Government but a very diverse Government on this side. I want to acknowledge all our new class of 2020 for the exiting experience, the energy, and, of course, diversity and inclusion they all bring to this House. I want to also acknowledge the returning MPs, for those that have made it back into this House for the 53rd Parliament.

Ikaroa-Rāwhiti—can I acknowledge the voters of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti. We had three campaign goals in this year’s election: one, to retain this seat; two, to return a Jacinda Ardern - led Government; and, of course, three, to increase our party vote from 65 percent to 67. We achieved all those gains, and I want to acknowledge the voters of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti.

As is customary, I want to acknowledge those dear ones we have lost over this year, and I want to particularly acknowledge Hinemanuhiri Vercoe. I want to acknowledge Temple Isaacs and, of course, our beloved colleague Shanan Halbert’s father, Winston Halbert. These three people, particularly, were staunch supporters of Labour in my electorate. They are a big loss, and I mihi out to them and their whānau.

As the Prime Minister outlaid in her debate in this House, the Labour Government has three overarching objectives. Clearly, we are still very much focused on COVID and health and on protecting our nation and our borders, and the recovery—realising we need to accelerate the recovery aspect of our plan—but also with an eye to the future.

I briefly want to touch on the importance for me, as the Minister of Customs, on how the Customs Service are contributing to those three overarching objectives. In the health space, clearly Customs continues to work at our borders. One of the first and primary agencies to keep our borders safe, I want to acknowledge Customs for their work that they have accomplished over this very trying year, alongside all our other border agencies like Immigration New Zealand and the Ministry for Primary Industries. They have done a stellar job of ensuring that only the right people come in, and I want to acknowledge Customs for their work in that space.

They’re also responsible for the Maritime Border Order, an absolutely new role, as we move from airports into our ports. I had the privilege on Friday of visiting such a port in my electorate of Gisborne, alongside my colleague the Hon Kiritapu Allan, to meet some fine folk that are monitoring our ports, and so I want to acknowledge the work on the Maritime Border Order that Customs are administering.

In terms of the economic recovery, Customs are playing a role in terms of our long-term economic impacts by boosting New Zealand’s exports and competitiveness through increased trust in the supply chain. They’re also protecting and promoting New Zealand’s trade interests abroad, and they’re also supporting duty-payers and building assurances over e-commerce while building capacity to respond to non-compliance. The work of Customs is often under the radar, but in this particular contribution in the House, I want to acknowledge their stellar work over this year but also as we recover and we move into our future opportunities, as outlaid by the Prime Minister in her Address in Reply debate speech in this House and, of course, in the Speech from the Throne.

It’s really important that our economic plan, which is made up of five parts—which resonates with myself as a Māori Minister but also as a Māori MP—is about putting our people first and about investing in our people. It is about creating jobs. As an electorate MP of a large electorate—which includes the Tai Rāwhiti, through the East Coast of the North Island—creating jobs is really going to be critical for our future survival, and I want to acknowledge that is preparing for our future, because we’re a dynamic and transformative Government on this side. We want to invest in our young people, and we’ve got the plans and the policies to do that. We also want to acknowledge the important role small business will play in that recovery, and we’ve got a suite of plans to engage and be informed by the opportunity that small business will play.

Of course, as many nations around the world close their borders or are still closing them through COVID, we here in Aotearoa New Zealand still enjoy the freedom of movement, and I want to talk about our global positioning. That is the fifth part of our economic recovery plan, and who better to do it than us here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

I’m proud to be a member, in this 53rd Parliament, of the Labour Government. We have a plan that I’ve outlined and supported that the Prime Minister has shared in this House. I’m standing in support of it because I know for the people of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, of Te Tai Rāwhiti, and of the entire East Coast, we’ve got a plan to ensure that we come out of this COVID solid and building on the energy and the innovation that we represent in this House and the people that we’ve come in to be a voice for, to ensure that the gains are for all. That is what this Government is promising.

Nō reira, e te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Tēnā tātou katoa.

I call Naisi Chen for her maiden statement.

Tēnā koutou e aku rangatira. Ki ngā mate, haere, haere, haere atu rā. Ka mihi ki te mana whenua, ki a tātou e tau nei, kia ora. Tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Distinguished members, greetings. To those who have passed on, rest in peace. I acknowledge the tribes of this land and I acknowledge those of us here today. Greetings one and all.]

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I want to congratulate you on your election. It’s people like you that make it a little bit easier for people like me, a 26-year-old who has hopes of one day also being in this House and to form a family and have children of my own—so thank you.

To tangata whenua, I acknowledge you. I have always believed that as migrants, we need to build a stronger relationship with Māori and gain a rich appreciation of tikanga in order to truly understand the land to which we want to belong. I’m also really excited that a part of your history involves the Chinese people. Since the first Chinese person, Appo Hocton, came to New Zealand in 1842, our whānaus have been interconnected. This is a story which I look forward to telling more. I commit myself to you as an ally, as someone who upholds the principles of Te Tiriti, and, hopefully, one day as your whānau too.

I acknowledge the Chinese that have come before me, both in this House but more so in this country, especially the ones that have been here for generations. They have been a community, despite adversity like the poll tax, and have thrived in all endeavours, including the goldmining age, in agriculture, in the laundromats, and in fruit and vege stalls. I acknowledge you all for your spirit and hard work, and look forward to working together to help preserve that knowledge and history.

My journey to this House started with my father, who is in the gallery here today, arriving on the beautiful shores of Aotearoa in 1996 with just $200 in his pockets. After two years of hard work and lots of challenges along the way, like having his files lost by immigration—I’m sure Kris Faafoi is running a better department now—my mother and I joined him here in 1999.

My parents practised as an osteopathist and a gynaecologist in China, but didn’t even think twice when offered the opportunity to come to New Zealand. My dad had always had a soul that longed for freedom, and Aotearoa was his perfect little country.

Being new citizens of a country brought huge challenges. My parents were never engaged in politics. Being migrants, they could not understand the complicated MMP system or keep up with the fighting, adversarial ways we talk in this House. Unlike many colleagues, politics was not discussed at our dinner table, but our community was.

Whether it was how to better help a patient they saw that day, or the details of the next event they had to organise for our local church, I knew my parents were always focused on their neighbours’ needs above their own. Often, I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find that they had been called out to mediate in a domestic dispute—now that I recollect that, it was probably a little bit illegal. They installed in me a never-ending commitment to serving those around me. Despite sometimes facing betrayal and disappointment, they have always demonstrated to me how to persevere in hard times, how to hold on to integrity and stay true to the vision from above, and I acknowledge them in this House today.

Growing up in New Zealand as a young migrant was a bit like a social experiment. I was trying to balance the stereotypical Asian piano-practising and the good math grades—for those who know me, that’s a joke—against the really Kiwi side of always disappointing my mum when I came home barefoot and with no books in my bag, and all the while often playing translator for my parents, as well, in dealings with our landlord, utility companies, and at parent-teacher interviews. They stopped going once I reached intermediate school because they realised the information they had been getting was somewhat single-sided.

I am not unique in these experiences, as they are shared by most 1.5 generation migrants. I want to be able to celebrate and cheer on each one of them in this House as they take their rightful place in our community. Whether it be on the 6 o’clock news, being made partner in large firms, or in leadership roles within our community, we have been and continue to be bridges back to our families and our communities.

I cheer them on also because it is us who will be the people who contribute more fully to New Zealand and help shape a new New Zealand. I stand here today as the only MP of Chinese ethnicity, despite 5 percent of the population identifying with this ethnicity. So I say that with regret. There are huge barriers for migrant communities in getting into politics. Our stories are often not told by ourselves. With my platform, I will fight to have our voices heard and fight against the racism that we experience.

But the Chinese community needs to look within, as well. The Chinese language media is often selective in the information that it portrays, and has demonstrated, sometimes, a slight misunderstanding in our country and our system. What gives me hope is that I’m the first 1.5 generation Chinese standing here in this House and I can see a new tide coming in.

My, perhaps, most taken out of context quote is that “I have no interest in politics.” Taken at face value, it is still rather true. In fact, my whole entire journey of leadership was quite a passive one. All my life, I had one dream, really, and that was to become a housewife. I was always shoulder-tapped to get involved and to hold leadership positions. That started with our high school committee. My good friend Max, then a complete stranger to me, offered me the role of girls school leader when, looking back, the only leadership quality I possessed at that time was just a really loud voice to silence a room full of rowdy teenagers.

The Office of Ethnic Communities then approached me for me to join the young leaders’ programme, something that has shaped my passion for public service, and then, a year later, Max came back to me and said I should be joining the New Zealand Chinese Students’ Association (NZCSA). Thank you, Max, for always opening up new opportunities for me, for installing in me a love of all things strategy, for teaching me how to think rationally and independently, and for being my biggest critic.

Being president of the New Zealand Chinese Students’ Association was something I never wanted, but it was one of those “If not me, then who?” moments I often find myself in. In NZCSA, I realised that most Chinese students never really integrated into the mainstream. They come to New Zealand from their own country, but still hang out in their own groups, seeking employment from Chinese businesses, which I soon realised reflected the wider Chinese community.

I believe that every migrant needs to integrate into New Zealand by adopting Kiwi values. Perhaps the substance of those values requires further discussion, but I would like to suggest the principles Te Tiriti, kindness, and diversity. This does not mean we forbid people from practising their own culture or religion—far from it. Rather, we must celebrate every culture, knowing that it strengthens us as country. In a society as diverse as New Zealand, we shouldn’t ever condone racism, but instead be able to let each culture adapt to New Zealand, so that it becomes a uniquely Kiwi version of that culture. The harmonisation of New Zealand values and cultural heritage—that’s what I see as the biggest challenge in our society during the years I will serve in this House.

The passivity continued in the story of how I joined the Labour Party. I still think it was borderline reckless that Raymond Huo, two weeks after hearing me speak at a function, asked whether I wanted to be a Labour Party candidate. I still remember at our meeting at his law firm that I had a CV in my bag, thinking he would be offering me a job there and then. He laughed at me when I said I wanted to become a criminal lawyer, but I don’t know whether being an MP was anything better than that. Thank you to the Labour whānau. Thank you for accepting me for who I am, for being always so generous in your support, for trusting me to represent our values here in this House. Thank you to our leaders in the party—to Claire, to Nigel, to Andrew Kirton, to Paul, and the entire New Zealand council. Thank you for trusting me then, as a 23-year-old, and thank you for trusting me now.

I was lucky enough to have the Rt Hon Helen Clark as a Prime Minister growing up. The little bit of extra help my mother got from Working for Families was put towards my piano, flute, then eventually double bass and tuba lessons. Music played a huge part in my upbringing. It gave me a platform to build my confidence, to search for the deeper meaning of beauty, and to make lifelong friends. I’m deeply passionate about the arts sector, and, borrowing what my colleague Rachel Boyack said to the youth choir who sang so beautifully at our State Opening last week, when the arts are strong, then our nation is strong. Thank you, Helen, for the leadership you showed in supporting Kiwi talent. I hope to continue your legacy in the promotion of our unique New Zealand identity through music and the arts—and thank you for always replying to my Instagram messages.

Being the second youngest in this House—although I think Chlöe and I are four months apart, and we settled on calling ourselves the “young people of Parliament”; shout-out to Chlöe, because I know what I’m about to say, you are definitely passionate about too—I would like to leave this place seeing my efforts in supporting the next generation of young politics come to fruition in young politicians from all communities. My leadership philosophy has always been to facilitate excellence, and that means I will put in the mahi to make politics more accessible by taking the time to break down jargon, to actually explain concepts, and to model the behaviour I expect of leaders. I invited all my guests today to bring their young children so that at an early age they know Parliament is their Parliament too. I hope they are as fortunate as I am in their journey.

Being a young person means that we are the bearers of the decisions made today into the future. As this House makes laws to navigate through one of the biggest economic challenges in our lifetime, I want to bring new ideas to the table. I see the recovery period as being a unique opportunity to redefine our economy—build it up to be stronger and more resilient than before. I believe that high tech but green tech will lead us into economic prosperity. I believe this time the world is looking for inspiration and we need to push bolder policies that support these industries by attracting innovative firms to our shores, encouraging Kiwis to really think outside the box, and giving them practical tools to do it. Although we are a small country, we can influence. I hope this House never forgets that power.

Over the last few weeks during the induction process, we’ve been told how difficult it is to have good personal relationships while holding public office. So today I ask forgiveness of all my friends and whānau in advance, and tell you that your friendship and aroha means a lot to me. In the gallery sits my best friend since intermediate. Our friendship began with one single question: “Can we be friends?” She’s been backstage at all of my most important events. She was the first to cry when she found out that I got a really high list placing this year; my mum didn’t even bother! Thank you to those who stood with us over the many, many tough years, to Yingrui, Tracy, Ken, my 2017 team in Liangliang Bill, Martin, my new Botany family Ben and Judy. I acknowledge you also, Chris, and also Damien here, in Botany, and the whole greater east side—and Simeon; the east side whānau. And thank you to Song, to Ed, for all of the support that you’ve given me in hooking me up with all the coolest collateral in town and picking up the balls when I’ve dropped them. I stand here because of the love they’ve given me, and I want to pass that love on to all the people I come into contact with and serve.

Thank you to all my team and the team that will be coming on alongside me of Ming and Ben and every other person in my office. I know we’ve got a big job ahead of us. I’m privileged to serve in the largest ever caucus in MMP history and I’m extremely thankful to our leader, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, for the words of encouragement you’ve given me in the past three years. Jacinda, you’re the best boss any young girl could ask for. You look out for us, you encourage us, and you make sure that we don’t feel overwhelmed in this place.

At the end of the day, if there is any praise for anything that I am or eventually will become, then let it be reflected in my maker. May God bless our nation and let it be a beacon of light to the world and a haven from everything that’s been going on—all of the contrast that we will bring to a global perspective. Ko koe te hanga, e hiakai ana, e hiainu ana, ki te tika e mākona hoki rātou.

[Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.]

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Applause]

I call on Helen White for her maiden statement.

Tēnā koutou katoa. It is an honour to be here. While I was preparing for this speech, I was forwarded an email with helpful advice from a member of the judiciary. It reads as follows: “Remind her what a special opportunity she has. She can say what she likes—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, section 14. It is a privileged occasion—Defamation Act, section 13. The ordinary rules of debate don’t apply, and the Opposition have no right of reply. Most new MPs do not realise the possibilities for anarchy and spoil it by talking about their ideals and what brought them to Parliament, but she should not feel constrained by a lack of precedent.” It is tempting. Likely to the relief of my party whips, I will not be defaming anyone today. But it occurred to me that it was likely no accident that this call to anarchy came from a person at the top of my profession who had taken on public office at the necessary personal cost of being able to freely express the frustrations that long experience in the law gives rise to.

I recognise the valuable opportunity I have been given to take partisan action, drawing on my experience. I get to say plainly what I think and advocate to fix what I think needs fixing. It is what I saw in my 27 years of practising employment law that drew me here and will guide me. I will get to that in a minute, but first I want to acknowledge that it is the wonderful leadership of the Labour Party right now that makes me thrilled to be here.

I am delighted to join a team which is at once diverse and unified. When I stood in 2017, the Labour Party was languishing in the polls. Low polls often lead to division, so I was delighted to find the Labour Party was, despite this, ridiculously unified. I have the greatest respect for the Hon Andrew Little, the leader at the time, because he is exactly that: honourable. So I put the unified culture down to good people leading with integrity. But I now think it was also the result of their unifying purpose, which I saw simply as seeking to redevelop basic respect between people, which is the essential building block of community. When we treat each other with dignity and respect, we listen, and we truly see each other, thus we foster genuine connection. What I have witnessed in the last term of Government was the impact of applying that resolve.

I consider that the Labour team from 2017 has successfully revitalised our sense of community. While it is a pity it didn’t happen earlier, it happened at a critical time in our history. The Government prioritised our vulnerable, and this value guided the response to the pandemic—it still does. I am so thankful for it. It came after years of policies which ignored the interconnections between us and entrenched disrespect for those who were vulnerable. This approach led many of our citizens to become overwhelmed, depressed, and alienated. It shattered our sense of community. It gave rise to things like chronic homelessness. I watched the reality of the impact of the growing gap between rich and poor in my city and in my area of law.

I grew up and stood in Auckland Central. I want to talk about why I’m committed to providing affordable housing in every community, including expensive places like Auckland Central and Waiheke, why, while it is no wonder that houses in such wonderful locations have gone up, I would like to see the older residents being able to afford to stay, and for these places to once again become places where people can live well no matter what they earn. I share with many others a vision of a well-designed, compact, affordable city which allows this rebalance, and I will work to this end.

My parents came from Kawerau to Freemans Bay in 1971 when it was affordable—just. They were not from wealthy families; there was no inheritance. My father told me once about his parents camping a whole summer on a Gisborne beach with a young baby because no one would rent them a house as they had too many children. Eventually, my grandfather lied about the number of children to solve that problem. Both my parents worked. While the inner city was more affordable and undervalued than other parts of Auckland at the time, it was still a struggle for my parents to pay the mortgage. I remember the constant anxiety about whether we would be able to keep our house. As the value of homes in the area rose, the leasehold and the rates went up, and it was becoming impossible to pay the annual land lease. My parents bought the lease when the interest rates were in double digits. Everything they had went into keeping that house. This had nothing to do with astute investment—it is still the first place most struggling families put their money. But as house prices went up, I watched most of the poorer families I grew up with in Auckland Central move out. When I went to primary school, I was one of a few Pālagi kids at a Pasifika-dominated school. Many in the Pasifika community left Auckland Central during my childhood; most working class families did.

My experience is that affordable housing is a major building block of healthy relationships with each other, because it means we really know each other as neighbours and as equals. When there is an increasing gap between rich and poor, it is very possible for people on different incomes to live in a physically separated world, and they quickly lose empathy with each other. In the last decade, I frequently heard talk of “losers” by those on high incomes when talking about poorer people. This language betrays a lack of empathy, and it demonstrates how disconnection leads to dangerous contempt. During the campaign, the Opposition complained that Labour’s progressive income tax punished hard workers; this is plainly out of touch with reality. The reality is many low-income workers work the hardest of all New Zealanders, and I saw that in my practice, not to mention that many on lower incomes are doing jobs which help others rather than themselves. It is less likely anyone would think such things if their neighbours proved otherwise.

In my work in the same time, I saw that there had been a personal grievance procedure meant to protect the rights of blue-collar workers that had become prohibitively expensive for those very workers. I have seen the exploitation of our most vulnerable workers by the side-stepping of employment law through the adoption of a contracting model. I was frustrated that those who took a case seeking reinstatement had to settle it because they feared a costs award against them and had to trade their job for whatever compensation they could get, often so they could pay their lawyers. I saw wages get lower and work get less secure. Most importantly, as a result I saw good people who had done nothing wrong and their families break under the pressure.

I have been given more outlet for expressing and acting upon my frustrations than most lawyers. A highlight was taking an important case about collectivity in front of a full court, thanks to Maurice Davis and the wonderful Amalgamated Workers Union NZ, here today in the gallery. It reinforced the value of unions in a society that seemed to have forgotten them. I also recognise that I have been working in a field that has had many redeeming features, including fantastic colleagues and judges. I am aware other areas of the law have been more extremely impacted by the lack of affordable access to justice.

One of the most positive changes I experienced in employment law was the introduction of an expectation of respectful treatment in the interactions between employers and employees—what we call good faith. Good faith was introduced by the Rt Hon Margaret Wilson in the Clark Government. It was introduced after a decade of the application of an individualised contractual model. My experience was everyone, including employers, breathed a sigh of relief when good faith was introduced. Combat is exhausting. Most of us will know from our private lives that it simply does not work in any long-term relationship.

What I learnt from this was the power of good legislative change. This standard of respect may be frequently broken, but it is a standard that Parliament set and it has shaped the values and guided those who genuinely seek to be good employers and employees. I do not discount the many injustices that still harm many New Zealanders in our workplaces; I wouldn’t be here if I did. But the legislative change that successfully engendered greater respect between people in the workplace was us.

In the first COVID shutdown, workers and employers faced a frightening experience together. There was no real precedent for what to do when a business is severely curtailed by factors beyond the control of either employer or employee. I was surprised at how many employers and employees came to practical compromise over payment and hours. I think that is a testament to the good-faith relationship. However, it also proved how unrealistic a system is which relies on individual negotiation in large workplaces. Is it really practical for 7,000 workers in one workplace to attempt to negotiate individually with their employer over a dramatic pay cut, in 48 hours? Does it really work for the employer or the employee? Isn’t it time for us to recognise the value of a good longstanding relationship between such employers and a union?

Many have clung to their dislike of unions by considering they are anti-competitive. All that has been achieved is the depression of wages and a greater gap between rich and poor. I want to see competition fostered where it will reinforce growth, including income growth—for example, to see a more certain and concrete prohibition of restraints of trade in employment agreements of low-paid workers. Our law already says that restraints of trade are prima facie illegal, but herein lies the value of my practical experience in the law. Restraints are habitually included in individual agreements for workers on wages close to the minimum wage. The poorer the worker, the more unlikely they are to challenge them. The possibility of litigation is too frightening. This means low-paid workers are afraid to go and set up their own cafe or move to the competition who might offer them a pay rise. It stifles their capacity to move from, say, $20 to $25 per hour. It means their employer has no incentive to pay them more, because they do not fear losing them to a competitor.

It is time for me to thank those who have worked their socks off to get me here and who have given me wonderful support. I will never get over the generosity of those willing to actually work for no self-gain. I would like to make special mention of my parents, both of whom are here today. I am so proud of them. My mother, Carol, was the first co-principal in a secondary school in New Zealand, and during that time she welcomed the Tampa refugees into her school. They in turn had, of course, been welcomed by the Clark Government. Those people were better off for the care she showed them and other New Zealanders took of them after a traumatic experience. She set up several creches which flourish today—her first in Kawerau so I could go there. She is a brave and clever woman I much admire.

I would also like to thank my incredible children Max, Eva, and Imogen. Eva lost her job in recruitment due to COVID and immediately found work in a drive-through testing station, then as a medical receptionist. She is now back in her chosen career, but I acknowledge that she and many others like her had a really hard year. My brother Gabriel also lost his job as an English-as-a-second-language teacher. Despite this, they have both helped me enormously at every turn, and I’d like to thank them. I would like to make a special shout-out to Archie and my family in the UK, who are having a pretty challenging time in lockdown there too.

Finally, I would like to thank all those who love me despite disagreeing with me. You have brought me so much happiness and it is never boring. I have been very lucky to have you all in my corner and I couldn’t be prouder. Thank you.

[Applause]

I call Shanan Halbert for his maiden statement.

Tupu te toi, whanake te toi, he toi ora te toi, he toi i ahu mai i Hawaiki. Tō purutanga, tō tauwhanga, tō taumuri ki te mana atua. Ka puta ki te whai ao, ka puta ki te ao mārama.

Ki te pāpā, e tangi tonu ana te ngākau ki a koe kua riro nei. Ko koe tēnei i mate i te wā o te pōtitanga. Ko te tohu Māori e kī ana—nāu ngā tatau o te ao Pāremata i huaki, anei ahau tō tamaiti, e tomo atu nei. Waiho ko taku kawe i ō akoranga me taku mahi i ngā mahi hei mihi māku ki a koe. Moe mai e Pā, moe mai, moe mai, moe mai rā.

Ka huri atu, e te iwi. E ngā rangatira—te iti, te rahi, e tau nei—tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Grow the treasure, develop the treasure, it is a living treasure, the treasure that stems from Hawaiki. The call to wait, the call to summon, the call to the ancestors. Let us emerge into the world of light, the world of enlightenment.

To my elder, the heart still mourns your passing. You left us during the election. I say, in our own uniquely Māori way—you opened the doors to Parliament and I, your protégé, have walked inside. Let the things that I achieve with the learnings you have imparted to be my acknowledgement of you. Rest in peace Pā, rest in peace.

I return to those in this room. To my distinguished colleagues and distinguished guests, to the few and to the many, greetings one and all.]

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. I am proud to stand here as the new member of Parliament for Northcote. I’m here to be a strong local voice for my community. I want to share my future vision for Northcote, but I want to start with my personal story. It’s one of modern Aotearoa. While Auckland is my home now, I grew up in Napier. My family didn’t have much money, but what they did have was a whole lot of love. My mum was the main breadwinner. She worked at the local fish and chip shop, she picked fruit, she worked at St Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College, and for the past 20 years as a checkout operator at Napier Pak ’N Save. She worked tirelessly for her employers, despite the long hours and demands of raising a family. She is my example of why we should all support our essential workers. She’s here today. Thank you, Mum.

And my dad. He served with the New Zealand Defence Force in Malaya, and then worked in seasonal jobs, including at the freezing works in Whakatū. He learnt te reo Māori at the age of 35 and later trained as a teacher at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga. This is where I found my love of education. A devout Catholic, he brought me up to love unconditionally. He was generous. In October last year, dad was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. We were told it was most likely caused by an exposure to asbestos back in his freezing works days. Dad was my biggest supporter, and I dedicated my 2020 campaign to him and, in return, he promised he’d fight the cancer to be with me until election day. I last spoke to dad the night before the election and I was able to tell him again, “I love you, Dad”. Mum called me the next morning with the sad news that he had passed away in the night, but he had kept that promise.

What I am reminded of in this month is that even with the honour of being elected as a member of Parliament, one is still human. I am still a son, and grief impacts us all. My dad played a positive role in my life, and supportive fathers don’t always get the recognition they deserve. Today, I also acknowledge all of the dads and parents in the room as well as those that are looking down upon us.

Dad was laid to rest in the Moawhango Valley amongst our tūpuna, amongst Ngāti Whitikaupeka, who are here today and I honour them. I honour those that have carved this space before me. I stand on their shoulders, cloaked with their struggles, and I will continue their work. Today, I especially mention one of my tūpuna Hiraka Te Rango, a gifted leader who was a part of the Kotahitanga movement to establish the first Māori Parliament in the 1890s. My iwi, Ngāti Whitikaupeka, are proud that 115 years later we are represented here too.

I’d also honour Rudy Taylor who recently passed. Rudy was the chair of our Labour Māori Council. He believed in building relationships and bringing people together, even in our most challenging of times.

My parents taught me to work hard. Mum lined me up with a paper run at the age of 10 with the Daily Telegraph, and at the age of 12 at the Continental Fish Supply in Napier. I joined the Labour Party because of the social values that my parents taught me: that everyone, not just those at the top, deserves a good education and a job afterwards; that everyone has a warm, dry place to live, and access to good healthcare when they need it. I am a beneficiary of growing up in Māori housing in the 1980s with my parents in our family home, and years later buying my own home because of the KiwiSaver fund that enabled me to establish a deposit.

With a Māori father and a Pākehā mum, being Māori is an intrinsic part of who I am. I bring those values to this House: kotahitanga, whanaungatanga, manaakitanga—unity, kinship, kindness. These are also the Labour Party values and they are values that I believe will form strong, vibrant communities in Northcote and in Aotearoa. In 2018, the Hon Kelvin Davis delivered this Labour Government’s commitment to Crown Māori relations using the concept of a bridge, te arawhiti. For the longest time, Māori had to cross over that bridge just to talk to our counterparts on the other side, just to justify their place and aspirations in modern New Zealand. But under this Government, the Crown is required to meet us on that bridge—that we make steps to come together. That’s the leadership that I bring to our community and I invite all of my constituents in Northcote to join me along that bridge, to build an even richer culture and identity and an even more inclusive Northcote.

But my election was never my journey alone; it was also testament to the relentless, positive energy of our local Labour team led by our electorate chair, Hilary Chidlow. To all of our supporters, our donors, and our volunteers, all of my aroha to you, and thank you. I want to acknowledge my partner, Anthony, who is a front-line doctor at Auckland Hospital. I thank him for his support, and I thank him for the relentless drive and faith that he has had in me.

Thank you, also, to other family that are here, and friends, and colleagues from Auckland University of Technology and Te Wānanga o Aotearoa—many of whom are here today. I also acknowledge a few of our local heroes in Northcote who lift me up and whose causes I will take forward: former Labour Northcote MP Ann Hartley, who is with us today; former MP Marilyn Waring, an icon of our rainbow community; John Marsland, honoured this year for services to community; Bella Powell, who is fighting for lifesaving drugs for herself and others living with cystic fibrosis; and Anil Nathoo, who runs a three-generational family business and is still active in supporting our grass roots community. Like these local heroes, I hope to be a strong and brave local voice, and I will never take my seat in this House for granted.

I ran for Parliament to lead our community, to lead our causes and strengthen the role that central government plays in our daily lives. Northcote is the perfect example of what New Zealand’s future looks like: diverse and multicultural, urban and green, a local economy tied to a larger market. My vision for Northcote is based on living, on learning, and on earning; a strong local community where we can live, learn, and earn without crossing the Harbour Bridge unless we choose to.

There are five things that we need to make this vision real: first, everyone living in Northcote needs better transport solutions. Each family and each day presents unique transport requirements, so what we really need are multiple options. I am committed to progressing affordable and accessible buses, ferries, and rail. For some groups, there is a need for free transport. We need a toll-free SkyPath. An additional harbour crossing is a long-term yet urgently, urgently needed project too. These are needed for Northcote residents to get to the rest of Auckland, but also for the rest of Auckland to visit our incredible hospitality, our retail, and our green spaces.

💬 Second: healthcare, including mental health support. I know the issues and sometimes tragic stakes in this area all too well. We recently lost one of our talented young men at our local Northcote rugby club, and New Zealand still has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. As an electorate MP, I will champion better access to primary healthcare in our community, in our schools, and in our poorer areas—including mental health services and Whānau Ora. I will also respond to something that is very personal to me—meth addiction—that has had an impact on both my family and Northcote’s community.

💬 Third: as Northcote’s wealth and population grow, we need to fight growing inequality. To achieve this, we need to build strong neighbourhoods, welcome people with diverse ethnicities and incomes, and maintain our proud history of social and affordable housing. I will champion for North Shore communities who need Government support and services, and I will build on my work as the chair of the Birkdale Beach Haven Community Project.

💬 Fourth: learning on the North Shore should be attractive and accessible. I’ve spent over 15 years working in the business of education, supporting others into higher learning, and ensuring that everyone has the same educational opportunities that I did. I am passionate about extending beyond our university provision on the shore and bringing more tertiary education options to Northcote, including polytechnics, wānanga, and trades training.

💬 Finally: earning in Northcote is essential. I am a huge supporter of our local retail and small businesses, which are a big employer locally. As we build back from COVID-19, I want our businesses to prosper, to train apprentices, create well-paying jobs across our electorate, and build our local economy. Supporting local, retail, and small businesses is going to be a central focus of my time in Parliament. The last Government made huge progress to make Northcote a better place to live, learn, and earn: rebuilding Onepoto Primary School, our only decile 1 in Northcote; a $60 million investment to improve facilities at Northcote College; SkyPath—there are too many examples to list. The last Government launched this work, and it’s now my job as the new local MP to see it through.

The class of 2020 are proud to be a part of this progressive, inclusive Labour Government, led by Jacinda Ardern, Kelvin Davis, and Grant Robertson. We will continue to take action on the big generational challenges, from inequality to climate change. We will be a Government for everyone, and I will be a local MP for every constituent. My personal leadership style is about bringing everyone together and I have always felt a sense of urgency to seek new pathways, new opportunities, and to get things done—and my time in Parliament will be no different. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Applause]

Waiata

I call Steph Lewis for her maiden statement.

E rere kō mai te awa nui, mai i te kāhui maunga ki Tangaroa. Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au.

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā waka maha o tēnei motu, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[The ancestral river flows, from the mountains to the sea. The river and I are one.

To the leaders, the representatives, and the descendants of the many ancestral canoes among us, greetings.]

Mr Speaker, congratulations on your re-election. It’s an honour to be in the House today, making my maiden statement. I was born in Whanganui, the eldest of Bob and Kim Lewis’ five children. Dad was a prison officer at Kaitoke, and we lived in the village next door. My earliest memory is of prisoners escaping. Dad woke me in the middle of the night and took me into our lounge, where our neighbours were huddled together. I can recall the sound of the prisoners jumping the fence into our backyard and the thud of their footsteps as they ran. They didn’t get far, though, because they tried to swim a lake and needed to get fished out.

When I was a bit older, I remember asking the grown-ups around me what a prison was and being told that it’s where bad people go. “Why?”, I asked. “Because they did bad things.” “Why?”, I asked again, and was never given a satisfactory answer. But I’ve learnt that the answer is more complex than “because they did bad things.” Many in our prison system have been hurt themselves, often as children by people they trusted. We must break the cycle of children growing into adults who harm others.

Dad’s dream was to become a full-time farmer. When I was four, my parents bought a 1,200 acre hill country bare block on Omahina Road in Waverley. They dreamt of building a home for us there, but those dreams slipped away because the road to the farm was a path, a track too dangerous to use when it rained. The money they saved to build a home for us went on lawyers’ fees, trying to fix the road. I still remember the look of defeat when my parents came home from court one day. It was then that I resolved to do all I could to help people like them get a fairer go.

Growing up, the cost of living kept increasing. Mum’s contract wasn’t renewed. Dad’s salary didn’t go far to feed and clothe five children. I was bullied at school for wearing hand-me-down clothes on dreaded mufti days. Some mornings I would go to make my lunch for school and realise that there wasn’t enough bread for us all to make sandwiches; without telling anyone, I chose to go without so that my siblings would have something to eat that day. Sadly, my experience was not unique. I was a child of the 1990s who bore the brunt of the austerity of the times. While things were tough for us at times, for many others their situations were far worse.

Government decisions do make a difference. Initiatives like Working for Families, under Helen Clark’s Government, made life better. I remember in my last year of high school, we had what felt like the first proper Christmas in years, with a roast meal and presents for everyone—a welcome change from the Christmas where I cooked my family fish fingers for dinner. The reforms we made last term through our Families Package will have equally benefited people’s lives, but there is still more work to do.

One thing we need to remember in politics is the power of our words. I worked hard at school but I knew my parents couldn’t afford to send me to university; my only way to get there was with a scholarship. So I spoke to one of my teachers about taking scholarships exams. He said he wasn’t interested because they were for gifted students or kids who went to schools like Collegiate, and I was neither. His words hurt, but with my parents’ support I went to Whanganui City College, where I finished as dux. With the help of scholarships, I completed a Bachelor of Arts and law degree, becoming the first person in my family to graduate. I still believed that with a law degree I could fix the farm road and Dad could live his dreams; sadly, he passed away before I finished. I was just 21 and my youngest sister was five.

Like many professions, being a prison officer is hard. It takes a toll physically and mentally. Many of my dad’s workmates died before they were old enough to retire. Dad was 54, having served for 32 years. That’s why it’s important that we provide universal super at 65.

I finished university following the global financial crisis and moved home. It took me seven months, nearly, to find a job. I picked up casual work at the Waitōtara dairy, but I couldn’t find anything full-time or permanent. I made the difficult decision to go into Work and Income. They looked at my CV and said that they had no work for me. Deflated, I went to Community Legal Advice Whanganui (CLAW) to volunteer. Thanks to Sandra, I left CLAW with three days a week paid work as an employment advocate. Since then, I’ve been a lawyer, an investigator, a privacy adviser, and have resolved disputes between individuals and large agencies.

In 2017, I had the privilege of being Labour’s candidate for Whanganui. We ran the campaign of our lives, and came close but missed out by 1,700 votes. Last term, I was elected to Labour’s Policy Council, where I chaired the economic development policy committee. I applied the lessons I’ve learnt from talking to people in Pātea, Hāwera, Whanganui, and Stratford to develop policies to help our regions grow.

I haven’t shared my story today to seek pity. I’m not claiming to have grown up in severe poverty. There were hard times, but there were good times full of love and laughter. I have shared my story so that those listening today know that I understand what it means to have to choose between paying for food or petrol or power. It is exhausting having to fight every day to survive. My hope, though, is that in this House it doesn’t always have to be a fight, and that we can work together to put people first. I fought my way through and so can you. No matter how hard things get—and sometimes they get bloody hard—there is always a way through. It doesn’t matter how much your parents earn, it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, and it doesn’t matter if you live in a flash house or drive a fancy car—those things don’t matter. Take risks, pursue your dreams, then it matters how you treat people and how hard you work.

I’ve come here to fight for people like the three-year-old boy at a kindy I saw in Whanganui, whose teacher told me that he’s been sleeping in a car with his mum and dad at the local cemetery. I’m here for the year 9 students I met in a math class one day, who were sitting slumped in their chairs, heads bowed or in their hands. They already looked like they believed they were failures at 13 years of age because they had heard again and again that “you don’t meet the standard; you haven’t achieved.” I’m here for the solo mum I door-knocked this campaign who had been struggling for years to make ends meet and, thanks to a Labour Government, could study to build a better future for her kids. During the campaign, I met Ruby, a 10-year-old girl interested in learning about politics. It’s our fundamental duty to support the next generation to reach their dreams. I want girls like Ruby to grow up knowing that they can do anything.

My electorate encompasses the great Whanganui awa. It spans from the Whangaehu River to Monmouth Road north of Stratford. It includes Whanganui, Stratford, Kaponga, Manaia, Eltham, Hāwera, Pātea, Waverley, Waitōtara, Fordell, the outskirts of Ōpunake, and the settlements up the river. It is a true privilege to represent Whanganui, New Zealand’s most beautiful city for two years running, and Taranaki, which was named the second-best region in the world to visit in 2017.

I’ve been asked if I’m excited to have the biggest-ever majority in the Whanganui seat, and I am, but I also feel the weight of the responsibility that comes with it. That is to advocate for everyone in my electorate, to help them achieve their potential so as, hopefully, they get a better ending to their story than my dad got to his. I know that to work here, you’ve got to be prepared to do some long hours. My grandpa, Frank Lewis, worked here as a security guard. I have some of his notes from that time. His final entry, in June 1984, after dealing with a midnight prank call, starts “Just my luck to start my retirement.”, and ends “Third floor cleared. Complete search of the area. Nothing unusual was found. I can relax again. Police departed the complex at 10 past midnight.”

I’m not here to make bold promises; I’m here to work every single day to make sure we get the basics right, so that no family falls through the cracks again. We need to keep putting our people first, and that means keeping investing in our regions, making sure that no matter where you live, you have access to quality health services, that our tamariki and our rangatahi are getting a world-class education, and that all our people have healthy, affordable homes to live in.

In our regions, we need to keep building more affordable housing to take the pressure off that’s been created by the influx of people. We need to make sure that we’re attracting and retaining health professionals in our regions, making sure that they’re connected through broadband, cellphone reception, and our roading networks. Places like Pātea on State Highway 3 should have, at the very least, cellphone reception.

This Government’s investments in the Whanganui Port, Hāwera’s civic hub, Stratford’s community pool, and the green hydrogen plant in Kapuni have made a difference. Although COVID-19 has been devastating, it’s presented us with an opportunity to build back better. I’ll work with my communities in my electorate to ensure that they thrive as we recover and rebuild from COVID.

I’d like to finish with some thankyous. Firstly, to the voters in Whanganui, South Taranaki, and Stratford, thank you for the faith that you have placed in me. I will represent everyone in our electorate, regardless of who they voted for. My door is open. I acknowledge all of the mana whenua in our electorate, and I look forward to working with you. Thank you to our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, for all that you’ve done to support the people of Aotearoa in the last three years and for showing us there is a place for kindness in politics.

I’d like to acknowledge some of the teachers from the nine different schools I went to. They helped me to grow and to find my voice. Adela Stiles, Rae Karipa, Lia Tuffield, Tara McIlroy, Sue Marr, Bronwyn Bullock, Jenny Shaw, Doug Davidson, and, although not actually a teacher, Jason Tamm.

Thank you to the Whanganui Labour electorate committee for your incredible support over the last four years—in particular, to Rhona, who suggested I stand. I acknowledge those who have contributed over the years, like Dave Vallely, Bill Walmsley, Jocelynne Labrum, and Neville Pollock, who can’t be here, and also Murray Wright and Dave Fieckert, who are no longer with us. To my campaign team, David, Katrina, Craig, Jude, Irving, Rosemary—happy birthday, by the way—Barbara, Emma, Jo, Josh, Bob, Diana, Steve, and Helen, you’ve stood by me through two gruelling campaigns. You’ve run a marathon at a sprinter’s pace, and I can never thank you enough for your support. To our volunteers who helped door-knock, make phone calls, staff our campaign shop, run street corner meetings, run events, deliver leaflets, take up and down signs, donated, or had a sign on your property, I thank each of you. You are the heart and the soul of our campaigns. We could not have achieved this result without you.

Thank you to the members and supporters who have come here today to see me. To my predecessors, Russell Marshall and Jill Pettis, I acknowledge you for the efforts and sacrifices you made for our electorate. To Hamish McDouall, thank you for mentoring me at CLAW, for your friendship and support. You started this journey by chipping away at National’s majority. I also acknowledge Chester Borrows and Harete Hipango. I wish you and your families well. Thank you to Nicole, Jane, Tiffany, Carla, Emma Kean, Sakura, Ben, Andreas, Jennifer, Kelly, JP, Dean, Yvonne, Jackie, Mike, and Nimmi for being part of my support crew. To my mum in the gallery, and my dad, thank you for your unwavering love and support, for teaching me to dream, to be humble, and for the sacrifices you made for us kids. It’s hard to believe that as of Saturday, Dad’s been gone for 11 years. I’d love to know what a National-voting farmer would make of his daughter being elected as a Labour MP!

To my brother, Robbie, and my sisters, Vicky, Catherine, and Mikaeyla, thank you for your ongoing support and love and for keeping me grounded. To my husband, Rob, you are my rock. You’ve stood by me through thick and thin and always have a hug and a smile ready at just the right moment. I love you, I adore you, and I’m proud of you. To my wonderful daughter, Scarlett, you are and always will be my number one. You give me a reason to smile every day. I love you. I’m so proud of you, and I hope that in the future, you’re proud of your mum, too, and that you look back and don’t just remember missed bedtimes but lots of love and laughter, too. Kia kaha, kia māia, kia manawanui hoki. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[Be strong, be courageous, be steadfast too. Greetings to one and all, thank you.]

[Applause]

The sitting is suspended until 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 6.04 p.m. to 7 p.m.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.