General Debate

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

Last night, there were two states of emergency declared in Wellington. One was caused by a polar blast and strong waves from the South, and thankfully it caused little or no damage to the south coast of Wellington. The other state of emergency was triggered by a northern polar blast, specifically one that emerged from the legal offices of Chris Finlayson Esq.

For those of us who served in Parliament with Mr Finlayson, it was a cheery reminder of his trademark subtlety and diplomacy. Declaring a state of emergency for the National Party is probably not before time, but Mr Finlayson made his reasons starkly clear. Reason number one: brand destruction, and I quote—I quote from Mr Finlayson—“I don’t think … ever …, in my life, [I have seen] brand destruction as devastating as that,” and, bear in mind, Chris Finlayson was around when Bill English took National to 21 percent, so he knows a fair bit about a terminal brand. Reason number two: leadership, or lack thereof. Quoting Mr Finlayson again, “[The National Party] is going through … [the] agonies [it is] because of the failure of the president and the leadership”. It’s Chris Finlayson’s empathy that I’ve really missed around here. To quote Mr Finlayson: “You’re talking to the wrong person if you expect me to express any sympathy for the current plight of the National Party, they deserve everything that’s come to them.”, and he told the journalist, “Put that in your article: they deserve everything [that] they’ve got.”

Now, to get to the origins of this empathetic love note from Chris Finlayson, we need to take ourselves back to last Tuesday evening. Just on 10 p.m., as Andrew Bayly was pulling his slippers on and putting on his Versace night-robe, brewing his extra-strong Milo and getting ready to put his trusted teddy to bed, word came through about an emergency caucus meeting. “Good,” Mr Bayly thought. “Finally, Judith is going to get me an oral question.” But, alas, it was, in fact, not that. It was the “Night of the Short Plastic Knives”. Someone had been mean about Harete Hipango, and it was time to find out who was behind it all. Now, given that there were approximately 33 likely and, frankly, quite justified suspects, this was going to be a toughie, but thankfully for the Leader of the Opposition, snitch-in-chief Barbara Kuriger was able to inform on Todd Muller, and he was gone. As Claire Trevett described the meeting, “There were allegations, betrayals, acts of revenge and cowards covering their … butts.” Such is the loyalty and sense of unity in the National caucus that Chris Bishop, Todd Muller’s numbers man and well-known shiver looking for a spine to run down, was there to kick his mate on the way out the door.

We’ve heard a lot about free speech today, but it’s clear to me the greatest threat to free speech in New Zealand is the Leader of the Opposition. She has told her caucus not to talk to the media, so Simon Bridges hit Instagram about how he was going to keep talking to the media. I can only think of that as a cry for help, and so on this side of the House we are ready to take up the cause: free Simon Bridges! Free him. Free Simon Bridges from the Collins cancel culture.

To be fair, though, Simon Bridges is right to be worried. Todd Muller called Harete Hipango a liability. Simon Bridges said that Maureen Pugh was “[rather] useless”, and if that isn’t National Party hate speech, I don’t know what is. But then the leader herself should probably be a bit worried. If the standard is “saying things that are mean about your colleagues”, Judith Collins is currently holed up in a floor-to-ceiling glass house. As one of her colleagues said on her election as leader, “It’s a bit rich to be lectured on loyalty by her, given how much leaking she did.” But then, on the other side of the coin, she called Bill English a poor leader, and Bill English in turn said that she had an unfortunately high estimate of herself, so it cuts both ways over there. But, as I’ve said before and I’ll say again, nothing screams “alternative Government” like late-night caucus meetings, resignations, scandals, disappearing lounge suites, and MPs being chased through airports, and long may it continue.

Five whole minutes from the Deputy Prime Minister, and not a single thing said about the Government’s good work! And there’s a really good reason for that: because there is no good work going on by the Government. But I’ll do Mr Robertson’s job for him; I’ll talk about the Government’s activities. I thought that the hardest task of a Minister in this Government was to do a worse a job in their role than Phil Twyford! Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner, and the winner in the “talk big but do nothing” stakes is his successor in the transport portfolio, Michael Wood.

I want to start with the car tax, because now we have hard-working farmers, tradies, and large families being taxed up to $5,175 so that well-off people can pay less for their electric vehicles (EVs). And we now know that for used EVs, at least, more than half of that tax is going to go to Japanese car exporters. The industry warned the Minister, and Treasury warned the Minister, and said that that was absolutely likely to happen. Three days after the policy was announced, a 2017 Nissan Leaf went up by over $2,200. More than two-thirds of the subsidy is going to Japan. This Minister is perfectly happy with a policy that takes money out of the hard-working pockets of New Zealanders and that gives it to overseas exporters. And if the subsidy runs out, because people do take up EVs, it is going to be paused. But what is going to happen if there is more money taken and all of that tax is not needed? Will that be given back to those hard-working tradies and farmers? Not on your life, Mr Speaker.

And whether they are electric or hybrid or petrol, these vehicles need roads to travel on. But every single transport document that Mr Wood releases shows how much he hates cars and how much he hates roads. The best example of that is the rort that is the New Zealand Upgrade Programme: $7 billion - odd of that was to go into roads—announced, I should say, by the previous National Government and then promptly cancelled by Mr Twyford, but at least he only did it once. The Government comes along, in an election year, knowing they are under pressure, and re-announces all of those roads. Five minutes after the election, we have a pause, we have a re-baselining, and the biggest projects in that are cancelled again. Papakura to Drury South, Whangārei to Port Marsden, Mill Road, Takitimu, and North Highway: all gone. And we know that the four-laning of State Highway 21 to Piarere didn’t even make the list; one of the most dangerous roads in the country still taking lives. But we know that Ōtaki to Levin got funded, and we know that the Melling Interchange got funded—and what do they have in common? Well, they’re marginally held Labour seats. Well, I tell you what, that’s a back-handed compliment to Mr Bayly and Ms Collins, because they don’t think they are going to win Papakura or Port Waikato, but they are worried about losing Hutt South to Mr Bishop—and so they should be.

That is not all of the roading projects that they’ve canned. Every single council up and down the country is hopping mad with this Government and this Minister for breaking the commitments that they made for regional road maintenance and improvements. I see Mr Mooney over there, his Southland district mayors are on a war path, with the dozens of bridges that are having weight restrictions or bypasses on them and roads that are having, actually, quite heavy freight on them, with Fonterra trucks and other dairy trucks, where the road-user charges are going to Auckland but the money is not going to Southland. And every single council, from Northland to Coromandel, Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Balclutha, they are all saying that this Minister has taken money away from them, and they ask the obvious question: where is it going? Well, we know where it is going; it is going on a cycleway across the Waitematā Harbour—$760 million taken out of their pockets and given to the 2,000 cyclists on the North Shore that want to have a bridge to go over.

That speaks to the priorities that this Government has—and it ain’t roads and it ain’t cars and it ain’t freight trucks. They hate cars. They don’t want to fix these roads. They don’t want to improve road safety. And that Mr Wood has done what I thought I would never ever see, and that is make Phil Twyford look good!

Well, isn’t this timely. I think we can call that audition number one. And auditioner number one, well, he was looking very hard for the killer line. I think that as hard as he was looking for that, he’s going to be about as successful in finding it as he was in finding the homeless man last year!

I’m very proud to be standing up today in the general debate and to be able to talk about a Government that is getting on with New Zealand’s recovery. Eighteen months into the global pandemic of COVID-19, when that infection continues to rage around the world, when many other countries struggle with resurgent infection, New Zealand is on a roll. This Government knows that we still have challenges to face, but, because of the resilience of our economy, the resilience of New Zealanders, the hard work of our team of 5 million, we are doing better than pretty much anyone else around the world.

I’m very proud of the fact that this is a Government which is looking forward. Tomorrow, 1 July, is a big day, because much of the work that we put into Budget 2021 is coming to fruition. I’m very proud that our Government, as of 1 July, tomorrow, will be making sure that working people and those people on the lowest incomes in our country get a fair go. The first round of benefit increases, $20 a week extra for our lowest-income New Zealanders, coming into place from tomorrow, Thursday, 1 July.

Tomorrow, Thursday, 1 July, we are proud to welcome back the Training Incentive Allowance. Just as the National Party this week might want to reflect on the wisdom of one former member, the Hon Chris Finlayson, this week they might want to reflect on the somewhat late wisdom of the Hon Paula Bennett, who has acknowledged that the move of that previous National Government to remove the Training Incentive Allowance was one of the most significant mistakes they made. Not only was it a pernicious policy that punished some of the people who need the most support in our society; it was a singularly stupid policy that cut off from those people the ability to get into higher education and make a contribution to our country.

On 1 July, tomorrow, I’m proud that our security guards all around New Zealand will receive the protections of Part 6A of the Employment Relations Act, because, after years and years of those workers having their terms and conditions degraded and driven down, this Government has taken action to make sure that they get a fair go.

My colleague the Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan will tomorrow very happily preside over the creation of the Ministry for Ethnic Communities: one of the most important recommendations coming out of the royal commission—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: That’ll change everything!

Mr Bridges—that this Government is proud to invest in, because we believe in working with our ethnic communities to make sure that people are safe and secure and have everything that they need to be able to contribute to our society.

Finally, I do want to address one of the other policies which will be coming into effect tomorrow, and that is the clean car and discount scheme, which will make sure that Kiwis get access to cleaner vehicles at a lower price. And New Zealanders are already lining up, they’re already there on Trade Me, they’re already talking to the dealers, getting ready to get into cleaner vehicles. I don’t quite know what to say about the National Party, because it’s difficult to actually understand what the position is, because just as we’ve heard Mr Woodhouse’s criticisms of the incentives scheme today, we heard the very day after the policy was announced that he actually, apparently, supports incentives to get Kiwis into clean cars. On the same day, we heard from the climate change spokesperson, Stuart Smith, who was entirely opposed to an incentive scheme coming into effect. And we only have to go back one National Party leader to have a statement on record from Todd Muller, saying that he entirely supports a “feebate” scheme and more action to get Kiwis into clean vehicles.

So we’ll let that side of the House sort out their position, and we hope they get to a united position at some stage on that issue and some other ones, but, in the meantime, this side of the House will get on with the critical task of making sure that we reduce our carbon emissions by getting Kiwis into cleaner vehicles. If there’s one issue which speaks to the total irrelevance of the National Party in 2021, it is their totally confused, head in the sand approach to climate change. That side of the House stood up in here and voted for an independent climate commission, voted to move to zero carbon by 2050, yet every time there is any measure on the table to actually do anything about it, they politic and they oppose and they have nothing to say about it. And if that party thinks that 22 percent in 2002 was nadir, then I say to them, continue taking that approach with the single biggest issue of our times and the issue that New Zealanders expect us collectively to take action on and 22 percent will look like the high point. This Government is getting on with securing our recovery and I’m very proud of it.

I want to start with a quote from a draft of a landmark report which is currently being prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be delivered later this year. A draft of this was leaked to Agence France-Presse, which reported its findings just a few days ago. The draft warns “of a series of thresholds beyond which recovery from climate breakdown may become impossible.” It warns, “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems … humans cannot.”

I just think the severity of the risk that we’re facing with climate change needs to be stated every single day in this House because there are clearly members who do not understand that it was 40 degrees in Seattle, Washington; that it’s 52 degrees in cities in Pakistan. Fifty-two degrees is a temperature at which the human body cannot survive for long and this will increasingly become the new normal if humans don’t get their act together and take drastic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’ve known about this for decades; the Green Party has been talking about it for decades. Although there are some members in the House who’ve finally come on board and realised climate change is something they may need to worry about, they still don’t understand how quickly we need to act and change fundamental aspects of how we live our lives in our society, how we produce food, how we get around, in order to survive this. So the Green Party will continue to raise this and proactive, productive policies that will help us all work together to respond to this challenge.

Now, the reason we’re facing this climate catastrophe at the same time as a catastrophic loss in biodiversity is because of an economic system that has exploited our planet and it has exploited many people. And we cannot address the climate crisis or the ecological crisis without addressing and changing this economic system and fundamentally improving equality between people, because a system that enriches a very small number of people is not good for any of us. So Government policy is central to mobilising our society and our economy to address both inequality and climate change. And I know that this Government means well and has set off a number of steps to take us in that direction but it is not fast enough. It is not going far enough.

Earlier this week in the House, I asked the Minister of Finance about whether or not he was really going to address the significant need to invest in infrastructure and, particularly, to address the housing crisis, because in our response to COVID-19, monetary policy has led to massive inflation in property prices and this is exacerbating inequality in our country and we have to do more about it. I know many of the steps that have been taken thus far are good steps: extending the brightline test, removing deductibility of mortgage interest. All of that will help but we have to address the housing supply issue and we have to do it in a way that is going to reduce emissions. One thing that really concerns me is that 90 percent of the housing that’s been built since 2018 does not have frequent public transport near it at all. So we’re building housing in the wrong places. It still costs too much. And we need massive investment in infrastructure, green infrastructure, that will enable our cities to house more people in a way that uses less energy, uses less water, and actually creates thriving neighbourhoods where people want to be. And this is entirely possible.

I just briefly want to talk about how, actually, it’s become very mainstream to look at the economic situation quite differently. I know the debate in this House is still kind of stuck in the 1980s sometimes where the Labour Minister of Finance wants to emphasise that he’s keeping a lid on debt. Well, keeping a lid on debt is not a responsible thing to do when we have record low interest rates and we have a need to increase spending to address inequality, child poverty, the housing crisis, and the climate crisis. We’ve got the leaders of the International Monetary Fund, the IMF; the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; and the World Bank all saying that this is a time for Governments to spend more money to address inequality, to spend more money on income support, to spend more money on infrastructure. This is not a time to worry about debt, and even the Secretary to the Treasury gave a very interesting speech earlier this week where she raised exactly this point. The right level of spending depends critically on the value of the spending initiatives and where they deliver high value for money, the appropriate level of debt will be higher. Now is the time for bold action to address these challenges.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā, e ngā mema katoa o te Whare nei, tēnā tātou katoa. The Government is getting on with its economic recovery, or, colloquially, as some of us know, “doing the mahi”. That’s what we’re doing on this side—doing the mahi. I want to touch on a couple of the agencies that I’m really proud to lead in their contribution to the Government’s trade recovery, and that’s the New Zealand Customs Service, through its own economic recovery programme. I thought I’d take it down a notch and just share with all members of the House how it’s looking like on the factory floor, kind of speak.

The Customs New Zealand economic recovery programme is based on our free-trade agreements and our work with APEC 2021, particularly around the Secure Trade Lane with Australia, and, of course, expanding our Secure Exports Scheme. Can I just highlight the fact that while we were in COVID last year, and COVID is very much with us, the stellar work that customs officers did both at the airport and our ports—continue to do that to keep ourselves safe. But they also enable the facilitation of personal protective equipment, gear, and, of course, the Pfizer vaccine that is coming into the country so there is no hold-up at our border, and I want to thank them for that.

But they’ve been also working with our duty payers. During COVID 2020, many of our exporters were facing some challenges around paying of levies, and we were able to put them on hold until they were up running again. So of 350 companies back in April 2020—we did that in terms of instalments of levies—I can report to the House that come April 2021, 96 percent of those owing levies to the Government are fully paid. So I want to thank them for that. The Secure Trade Lane with Australia I mentioned earlier is, again, to ensure that when we are fully open with our Australian neighbours, our exporters can come freely across the border.

But also the Secure Exports Scheme—and it’s interesting to note the value of our Secure Exports Scheme of about $159 million in products that we export. About half of the exporters in this country actually are signed up to the Customs Secure Exports Scheme. It just enables another mechanism to get our goods and services to market a lot easier, through signing up on the Customs Secure Exports Scheme. So I couldn’t be prouder of the work that Customs do in that space.

Of course, we have e-commerce, we have industry partnering, and we have the reduction of administration penalties across the customs systems to ensure that we are enabling our exporters greater opportunity to contribute to the economic recovery that’s been led by this Government.

But I also briefly want to touch on my Māori agribusiness team that is centred in the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI); the Māori Agribusiness Extension Programme; the Māori Agribusiness Pathway to Increased Productivity; He Ara Mahi Hou, which is the Māori agribusiness workforce, skills, and training programme; and the Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund co-funding pathways. Proud that MPI are working with iwi Māori land owners, farmers, food producers to increase productivity and, of course, contribute to the overall economic recovery of this country. I’ve said this before in this House, the Māori asset base is worth $68 billion and it’s a no-brainer that this Government and this side is actively working with our iwi Māori partners.

I also want to talk briefly on Stats New Zealand, the Mana Ōrite agreement, which is a partnership with iwi Māori data leaders and co-design of Te Whata. It is the first ever iwi platform information to enable the $68 million I touched on previously, in terms of investment and growth in that space. So I’m proud that this side is getting on with the mahi. I’m proud of the relationships we have built with iwi and Māori. And, at the end of the day, this side is delivering. We’re delivering gains for Māori, for all people, and that’s why I’m proud to be part of this Government leading an economic recovery for all, with all.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to speak about hate speech. I don’t want to use catchy sound bites or anything. I don’t want to talk about “woke-ism” or cancel culture or white privilege or Black Lives Matter or culture wars—none of that stuff. But I do want to say this: this is a bad law, a bad proposal, that the Government’s put forward. They could have, and they still could, I suppose, feasibly improve it, but, actually, when you’ve got a Minister who doesn’t understand it and a Prime Minister that doesn’t want to understand it, they should just scrap this bad proposal, this bad law, right now.

I want to make three points. The first point I want to make is that this is not about the royal commission. That’s what they’re saying. But the reality of it, if you look at what they are really doing with these proposals—which, sure as eggs, they’ll turn into law before the end of the year; they’ll slam them through this Parliament—they are doing a bunch of things that the royal commission didn’t recommend, and they’re not doing a bunch of things that it did recommend. The royal commission recommended hate crimes—that is, putting into law that if you assault someone with the motivation of racial hate, for example, it should be a higher sentence and we should enshrine that in law. Actually, I could go along with that. There’s a good idea. That is over half of the things around hate that the royal commission recommended. They aren’t doing any of that, and yet, in relation to the hate speech part, they’ve taken their chances and the opportunity to do a whole bunch of other things that aren’t in the royal commission.

The royal commission, if you read the report from back to back, is very reasoned—it’s quite humble, actually, about these vexed, complex, difficult issues, yet this Government, the Labour Party, has come in and said, “No, no, we want to do this. We’re going to take the opportunity to use the royal commission”—I think quite cynically, from Jacinda Ardern—“to do these hate speech changes.” The second point—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Sneaky!

It is sneaky, actually. I think the Minister doesn’t understand it and the Prime Minister doesn’t want to understand it. I think, sadly, she does, actually. She knows what she’s doing but she’s not being upfront with New Zealand.

The second point I want to make is that the Government’s in this ridiculous position, which, again—what did you say, Mark Mitchell? Sneaky—it’s sneaky. They are saying, on the one hand, “Look, we’re doing not very much; there’s nothing to see here. Actually, we’ve just got a tidy-up. There’s no big problem. We’re not actually changing anything.”, which is a ridiculous position, when you really think about it; if you’re not doing much, what’s the point of doing it? Or they’re saying, “Actually, it’s big and bold, it’s amazing, we’re following the royal commission, and that’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”

Well, our view on this side of the House is very, very clear. They are lowering the bar in relation to hate speech. They are not having this at the level of speech that incites violence, that leads to terrible situations we can all agree on—through to, I accept, terrorism—but that’s not where they’re going. They have lowered the bar significantly here in their proposals, and that will result, tragically, in this country, in many, many more prosecutions by police. They will be instructed to do more prosecutions and more convictions. In the criminal area, now, under this proposal, all you’ve got to do is, with a bit of a racial slur or something, insult someone else. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with that; I think it’s terrible. But is it criminal? Should we be sending a 24-year-old to jail for stupidity? I don’t think so, and I don’t think New Zealanders do either.

In the civil area, it’s even worse, because, remember, in the civil area, if someone receives a civil penalty in this area, you know what’s going to happen? They’ll never get a job in New Zealand, and not anything decent, anyway. And there all you have to prove is discrimination, fundamentally, if someone’s treated someone to an off-colour joke or something.

So I say this: I’m really concerned—this is my third point—that off-colour jokes, that protests, that Facebook posts in the heat of the moment are going to lead in this country to more police complaints, more disputes, more polarisation, an American style of—

💬 Hon Mark Mitchell: Weaponised.

—situation. Weaponise all of these things. That’s a tragedy, actually. I want to live in a country where people feel free to say what it is that they want to say, even if it’s ill-considered, stupid, maybe offensive, maybe insulting. If you just disagree, argue against what they’re saying—maybe shame them—but don’t criminalise it. That is not the Kiwi way. We’ve managed to avoid this for years and years and years, but Labour’s taking us down a dangerous, a slippery, an anti-freedom approach, and the National Party doesn’t like it.

Oh, it’s a pleasure to follow that speech from the next Leader of the Opposition. I support Simon. I think Simon would do a good job—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member supports “Mr Bridges”.

Mr Bridges, Mr Speaker—Mr Bridges! And I think when the next caucus meeting comes, Mr Bridges should sing that song “Yesterday, all our troubles seemed so far away, but now they know they’re here to stay, but I believe in yesterday.” So just a little bit of advice for the Hon Mr Bridges there.

But I’m not here to talk about the National Party. I’m here to talk about the economic recovery from COVID, because, as we heard from the Hon Michael Wood, when you compare the economic response that New Zealand has had, led by this Government, by our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, by Minister of Finance, Grant Robertson, we are fairly well placed. Look, there are still a number of challenges that we’re facing, but when you compare it to the other countries of the world, we are in a way the envy of some of those countries. Now, we must continue to be vigilant and I encourage the team of 5 million to continue doing that as we’re on this journey together.

We have an economy that is doing well. When I look at some of the industries, particularly the building and construction sector—building and construction is booming across the country and the reality is they are wanting to scale up. There are challenges around the supply chain that, obviously, we are collectively working on some solutions there, but the demand for the building and construction sector is very strong, and that links into some of the aspects that the Government has done in this area.

First and foremost, I’d like to talk about housing.

💬 Simeon Brown: How’s the Hamilton bypass going?

Housing is a long-term challenge that we are dealing with. It has taken many years to get into this situation of this housing shortage. But we are working on—

💬 Nicola Willis: How many KiwiBuild houses?

💬 SPEAKER: Oh dear.

—increasing that supply of housing, because the important aspect around housing is—people often say, “Housing, health, education—which one’s more important?”

💬 Simeon Brown: How many KiwiBuild houses?

But the reality is, if you don’t have people in warm, dry, healthy homes, then education and health aspects cannot be wrapped around that.

💬 Simeon Brown: How’s KiwiBuild going?

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Will the member resume his seat. There’s a requirement for interjections to be rare, reasonable, or funny. Simeon Brown’s meeting none of the criteria.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The housing acceleration fund announced by this Government is going to have a significant impact in this area: $3.8 billion across the country to fund infrastructure for new housing.

In terms of the context of the Waikato region, I’ve had a number of conversations with the councils in the area and they are speaking positively around this, because the reality is it’s difficult for rates to fund growth. The councils need money to put the infrastructure in the ground. So as a Government, we are partnering with councils, with developers, through Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, and other Government agencies to deliver housing at scale.

Now, who’s going to build these houses? Obviously, we need people to build them and it’s encouraging to see the trades and apprenticeships up across the country. For example, Wintec, the local polytech in the Waikato region, their domestic enrolments are up 28 percent, which is the largest single increase they’ve ever had. So that’s 28 percent. If I look at Waikato University, they’re up 10 percent in terms of domestic enrolments. Vision College, which is a private training establishment, their enrolments are up quite significantly, and particularly in aspects around the Youth Guarantee and working with young people who school hasn’t worked for and they’re bringing them into Vision College and putting them on trades courses. So we’ve got a lot of young people coming through, and not just young people; people of all ages coming through in the trades. And that’s really exciting to see, because previously people have often not looked at the trades seriously enough in terms of whether or not it is suited for them. I think there’s a lot of people who are very well suited to the trades and it’s encouraging to see them come through.

The aspect around Māori housing is an important one, and it’s an aspect that this Government are tackling head on. We know that Māori are less likely to own their own home and are more likely to face homelessness. That’s why we’re delivering a thousand additional new houses for Māori, funding repairs for whānau most in need, and partnering with iwi to accelerate housing projects. In terms of the local context, the Tainui iwi, they’re just about to start the inland port project and they’ve got aspiration in terms of the housing area as well. They’ve got some capital and they want to link in with the Government. That’s just a local example. But there’ll be a number of iwi who will link with Government to help deliver housing. I could go on, but it’s probably enough for now.

Has there ever been a Government that has promised so much and delivered so little? Has there ever been a Government that makes itself look so good in the PR spin and so poor in reality? Has there ever been a Government that has announced so much and delivered so little? And that member from Hamilton, Jamie Strange, chose to talk about this Government’s record in housing. So let’s just talk about that, shall we?

Let’s remember that these are the people who, in 2017, promised New Zealanders they would solve what they said was a housing crisis. Well, what’s happened since then? We have seen the fastest increase in housing prices in history. We have seen average rents go up $100 a week. We have seen declining rates of homeownership such that the lowest proportion of New Zealanders are in their own home. We have seen a Government promise 100,000 KiwiBuild homes—in fact, it’s KiwiBuild’s birthday this week, ladies and gentlemen. And this is the week when the Government was meant to be delivering the first 16,000 KiwiBuild homes. So how are we tracking against that milestone? Well, those people over there, who say they’re doing such a great job in housing, have delivered the grand sum total of 923 KiwiBuild homes. And Jamie Strange thinks that’s an achievement and got up to show off about it.

We are now in a situation where those members opposite were lamenting the fact that the Government of the day was spending $90,000 a day making sure that people didn’t need to live in their cars, putting them in motels. The Government said, “That’s far too much. It’s a disgrace.” So how much is this Government now spending on emergency housing across this country? One million dollars a day. Hang your heads in shame. There are now more than 4,000 families being forced to raise their children in motel rooms and campgrounds, and Jamie Strange gets up and says, “What an achievement.” We are now in a situation where there are four times as many people—

💬 Jamie Strange: So what are you going to do?

Jamie, you need to listen to this, because—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order!

—I don’t think you’ve been talking about it in caucus. We’re now in a situation where there are more than four times as many New Zealanders in such desperate need of housing that they are classified as at risk by the Ministry of Social Development and are waiting for a State house, and they are waiting now, on average, more than 200 days to be housed. And that’s all happening under Labour. Thanks, Labour! Jamie Strange thinks this is a great result. We’re now in a situation where the Government, who promised healthier homes, has said to its own housing arm, Kāinga Ora, “Hey, don’t worry. The standards don’t apply to you. We’ll give you another two years.” So that New Zealand’s most vulnerable citizens living in our State homes are the least likely to be in a home that’s insulated and warm. What a disgrace.

And so what did they do to solve it? Well, in November 2019, the Government’s housing arm, Kāinga Ora, said, “It’s time we fixed the headlines. What are we going to do?” And did they come up with a plan for building more homes quickly, at scale and pace? No, no, no, they’d already tried that and failed. So what they did was sign a contract for $25,000 a month to buy a few headlines. And this sneaky little contract, where they get paid advertorial online, on the OneRoof site—did they declare on the site that they were paying for it, that actually taxpayers were paying for it? No, no, they did not disclose it, in a clear breach of advertising standards guidelines. They decided to do the sneaky, and when I asked Minister Woods about it, she said that there was no agreement in place. Until a few weeks later, when I proved it, and she said it was a clerical error not to tell me that. This is the same Minister who came down to this House and said that she had proactively released all the information about the Government’s housing policies when she had not, and she had to apologise to this House for that. There is a pattern of behaviour.

So what should this Government do? Talk to National. We have provided you an emergency response bill with urgent measures that would solve the housing crisis, and if you don’t believe that releasing that land is what’s needed, listen to your own officials, Minister Woods, who said in their last briefing to you: “Availability of suitable land remains our biggest challenge” —

Order! The member’s time has expired.

It’s a pleasure to speak on this bill, particularly after the passionate speech by Nicola Willis, because it does give me a little bit of material to work with. The first thing I must repeat from previous speeches that I have made is that it just strikes me every time that the speeches that come from the Opposition at the current time just utterly lack positive vision and leadership. When I hear those kinds of comments about emergency housing, I can’t help but ask the obvious question that most New Zealanders will be asking: what possible excuse was there for leaving people in cars? For ignoring the fact that we had families at maraes, in haphazard dangerous situations, because they didn’t have a plan at all? What was the possible consequence of that? What the consequence was was a mess. That is what Labour has been cleaning up. It’s been cleaning up a mess created by a total lack of leadership and vision for quite a considerable length of time.

We have had, in-between, an incredibly dramatic crisis, and that was COVID. All it has done is it has focused this Government on what it needs to do to recover and build in a better way, and that is actually what this debate is about. We did not hear from the Opposition’s last speaker anything about building a recovery, so I want to devote the rest of my speech to that—because that is a positive thing.

Now, I can tell you that when I came to Parliament, I came—I stood in 2017, and I stood at a time when I was an employment lawyer. I was very concerned, because I’d grown up in Auckland Central, and I was concerned that I was in a city that was in crisis and it wasn’t even being acknowledged. We had John Campbell on the radio talking about homelessness, and we had people not turning up from the Government at that time on John Campbell’s show, because they had somehow decided it was not to be even talked about. That was the world that I was living in, and at my work I was watching people’s incomes drop and drop and drop, and their access to justice drop and drop. I was very concerned about the place that I was living in, so I stood for this role, and I’m lucky enough to be here when very visionary things are happening.

So I want to talk about what those look like for Auckland Central. We have got a crisis over homelessness, and we have had for some time. That doesn’t come out of one thing; it comes out of many. It comes out of the rundown of our health sector, so that we haven’t had the mental health support people need. It comes out of people actually just trying to make ends meet and failing to do so. It comes out of alcohol addiction, it comes out of unstable work, and that sort of thing leads to broken people. And when people break like that and end up on the street, it actually takes a lot of effort putting them back together. So you have to build a whole lot of resources that have been run down—one is we have to build a workforce in the health sector. Luckily that work had started before COVID, otherwise who knows where we would have been, because our health system was able to respond to that crisis.

I wanted first of all to acknowledge that the work is not just that of the Government but of the community in general. We have had a response that is right across the board, and in my role as a list MP based in Auckland Central, I meet with people in the area who are doing jobs that aren’t paid that well, and they’re doing valiant jobs, they’re zealously arguing for their community and the things they need right now to make it better. So I’d like to just put out a thankyou to groups like the business associations that work for their communities, and they don’t just stop at their own community of businesses. In a place like K Road, the business association—and, actually, the Heart of the City is another one—these groups actually put in a real effort to making sure that they are welcoming and inclusive to the people who are living on their streets, or return to their streets because they have nothing to do in the day. They actually start to work differently because they’re thinking differently—they’re thinking as a team, they’re thinking inclusively, and they’re very good people and they do a very good job. There’s a lot of work being done at the ground. But the Government has a leadership role too, and one thing that it does is—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I just spent the last five minutes here listening to Helen White, the member opposite, and she told us we were going to hear the visionary things that she stood for in Auckland Central. I guess the visionary thing that she stood for in Auckland Central was the $785 million cycle bridge across the harbour in Auckland, which has meant that transport projects across New Zealand have been cancelled, and up my way, we’re wanting to know why the Eastern Busway and the Reeves Road Flyover have been delayed by two years because the Lycra brigade got what they want for 3,000 people on a bridge.

But there is one thing this Government has delivered, and that is they’ve delivered more gang members than police officers here in New Zealand. New Zealanders are feeling sick and tired of the increasing gang presence in our communities, and they’re feeling less safe. The Government has delivered more gang members than KiwiBuild homes in New Zealand. They’ve delivered 2,500 gang members and less than 1,000 KiwiBuild homes. They should hang their heads in shame.

Just last week, the Napier City Council released a survey of the residents of Napier and their feelings of safety in the community. The survey undertaken in February this year found that 44 percent of locals did not feel safe in their city—44 percent of people in Napier did not feel safe. That compares to 17 percent last year and 19 percent in 2019. It is a fact that under this Government, New Zealanders are feeling less safe.

The question needs to be asked: who represents the seat of Napier? Oh, it is the Hon Stuart Nash, the former Minister of Police. I remember when he stood up in this place and he said, “Labour will smash the gangs.” Well, I would like to tell you that in the eastern district, where the city of Napier is, gang membership has increased by 56 percent under this Government.

💬 Hon Todd McClay: Oh, that’s smashing it.

Well, that’s smashing it—it’s smashing those targets in a different way, isn’t it? It’s not quite the smashing that the people of Napier were quite expecting when Stuart Nash said he was going to smash the gangs.

Which then gets me to the question: what is this Government actually doing to tackle the challenges of gangs in New Zealand? They promised New Zealanders 1,800 new police on the beat in three years. Well, on 1 July, tomorrow, it is four years since the increase in police started under the last National Government, and what have we got? We’ve got an increase of 1,300 of the 1,800 police officers. Where’s the last 500 of those officers? Seven hundred of them were to be tasked with tackling organised crime and gangs, and they haven’t even yet delivered 300 of those 700. They haven’t even got half way to the target of delivering 700 new officers focused on targeting organised crimes and gangs.

The most worrying and concerning fact in this survey is that 55 percent of respondents said that gangs were the greatest safety concern in the Napier City Council area. Gangs are what are causing the problems, gangs are causing New Zealanders to be unsafe, and this Government has done very little to address these challenges.

Almost two months ago, we had the Minister of Police and Minister of Justice announce to New Zealand that they were going to introduce tough new measures to tackle gangs in New Zealand—two months ago—and we still haven’t had any of that legislation come to the House. They said, “We will be introducing legislation to bring into force firearm prohibition orders.” Well, we asked the Minister last week at Estimates, “Where is that legislation? When’s it going to be introduced to the House?” “Oh well, it’s very complex. We’re working on it. It’s going to take time. Hopefully we’ll have something this year.”, were the answers.

Well, that’s not good enough. This Government was recommended by Police in the briefing to the incoming Minister, the Hon Stuart Nash, in 2017 that that legislation was needed, and we’re still here waiting for this Government to wake up to the problem that there are major challenges around law and order in New Zealand that need to be addressed.

This Government is soft on crime. This Government is soft on gangs. New Zealanders are feeling less safe. New Zealanders want tougher action, and they want it now. Thank you, Madam Speaker—Mr Speaker.

Mr Speaker—Mr Speaker.

💬 SPEAKER: Naisi Chen.

Can I first—

💬 SPEAKER: I’m just going to say that that pair of members have not distinguished themselves in the last week. Naisi Chen—starting again.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just before my colleague Helen White walks out the door, can I introduce—to the member over there, Simeon Brown, who’s just resumed his seat. This is my colleague, the beautiful Helen White, who is an absolutely amazing list MP based in Auckland Central. We’ve got, equally, an amazing MP based out in Taranaki - King Country called Angela Roberts, who, unfortunately, isn’t in the House this afternoon, because she’s just been—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! Order! The member is not allowed to draw attention to the absence of a member.

Sorry, Mr Speaker. So Helen White is in the House, who has just taken a call.

It gives me immense pride to take a call in this general debate in regards to securing our recovery. I still remember, on my first day of work here in Parliament, that I shared with my colleagues that I have four areas of New Zealand that I’m extremely passionate about, which are extremely close to my heart, those two sectors being the digital sector and the arts sector, and two communities being rangatahi and, also, the migrant community. Throughout this year and since COVID has started—actually, since we’ve become Government—this party, the Labour Party, has really delivered for those four communities. We supported 80 organisations in our arts sector during the COVID relief fund. We spent $4.5 million to make sure that our creative sector did not fall over during the hardest times in maybe their whole entire career.

We’ve supported our migrant community, because tomorrow we’re going to announce and we’re going to launch the new Ministry for Ethnic Communities, and this is so exciting. On the back of the recommendations that we received, this is going to be a milestone for us. For the rangatahi, for our students and young people, we have boosted $3.3 billion to their benefits and student loan support. That is amazing. So that our students can truly just be students and that they don’t have to worry about more than just their studying. They don’t have to worry about their income.

But today, I just really wanted to speak about our support to the digital economy. I saw a member saying to my colleagues on the first day of work that I’m really passionate about e-commerce, not just because I contribute a lot to it every single day with my internet shopping, but because I believe that is where the future is at.

I sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, where we have to hear from New Zealand Post every year as part of the State-owned enterprise portfolio that the committee oversees. I still remember New Zealand Post coming to our select committee and saying that they had to deliver 3.5 million—3.5 million—parcels during alert level 3 of the lockdown we had last year. They had been seeing absolutely historical figures of 200 parcels per minute. That is absolutely astounding, that they have to deliver 200 parcels per minute. We know that is where the future is heading in terms of economy.

Right now, New Zealanders are spending more than $5.8 billion—we spent that in 2020—online. That’s about $1.2 billion more than in 2019. That is an amazing and astounding growth rate in our e-commerce sector, and what is this Government doing, you may ask, to support this economic growth, to actually excel New Zealand into that trend? Well, for a start—and just keeping to New Zealand Post—we’ve invested $170 million into infrastructure, especially here in the Wellington region, where we’re building a hub so that our parcels can be delivered more efficiently. Who doesn’t want to get their parcels faster—right?

💬 Hon Member: Right.

Yeah, so this is exactly where we’re heading. Not only is it a global trend, but for New Zealand, this is the trend of our country. Right now, online shopping takes up about 11 percent of all of our spend, our shopping right now, but right now, compared to global, the UK, the US, and China are spending over 20 percent of all its spending. They’re doing it all online. So we can see that is the global trend.

I’m proud to be of a Government who is actually investing in the future, because in the 2021 Budget we have put $44 million into supporting our small to medium enterprises. We are supporting them so that they become more savvy in this digital economy world. We’re supporting them to enable small businesses so that they can actually take advantage of all the opportunities in this e-commerce world as we all recover from the global impacts of COVID-19. We know that is so important, so that’s why I’m proud to be on this side with the Government.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to stand here today. Unfortunately, I can’t stand here and say I’m proud to be speaking at the moment. Today, I’m standing to talk about the care of our children within the State and some of the things that have been going on in the background. Unfortunately, yesterday, it was brought to our attention that some things are happening within the State care system that shouldn’t be. I was saddened, disappointed, and angry at what I witnessed on that video yesterday. I had the opportunity to talk to the Minister in the Social Services and Community Committee this morning, where he stated he was not there to defend the indefensible. I understand that, but the buck stops somewhere, and does he realise that he is in charge of what he is saying is indefensible?

It doesn’t matter about what the venue is where this happened. These children are put there for a reason: because they’ve grown up in households with things happening to them that the average New Zealander could not even comprehend or even survive. These children have known nothing but despair, fear, and anger, and they have learnt to react in these ways. We have stuck them in these facilities because, unfortunately, they are not safe in the community on their own. They are in danger of either hurting somebody else or hurting themselves, and we have a responsibility to care for them. We are also teaching them that they have a place in this world and that there are ways to deal with their anger. How are we teaching them there are better ways to deal with their anger if we in the State care are reacting in the same way that they have been treated growing up?

Given the multiple name changes, failures, restructures, chief executive (CE) departures, and the commission of inquiry into State care—and, as we know by watching that news video, it’s still happening—I wonder would the Minister consider a cross-party discussion that could focus on what’s in the best interests of our children, because at the moment, it doesn’t seem like what we are doing is in the best interests of our children.

There are multiple issues going on here. There are issues with the fact that the internal complaints system obviously isn’t working within Oranga Tamariki (OT). How is it that in an environment where the focus is on making sure our children are cared for and making sure our children are safe, the people working within that organisation do not feel comfortable coming forward with concerns about what’s going on, and they are feeling like they have to go to the media to get attention? It has got so bad that the new CE has given out his number so people can contact him personally. Surely this organisation should be held accountable and be told to do their job properly.

The other issue is we are getting more and more articles from reporters that are being approached by workers within the organisation who are too scared to show their faces. Now, if I was a worker in an organisation speaking out to protect the children in this country, I’d be holding my head high. I would be fighting for the children, because if we can’t fight for our children, what can we fight for? But these people are hiding behind fake voices and blurring their faces because they are scared for their jobs. They are scared for their jobs when they are standing up for what is right for our kids. That to me is disgusting, and we should be ashamed of that.

We have had articles in Newsroom ranging from June, when we had a foster worker that was talking about “We are reacting to things going on in the community since the Hastings uplift.” This social worker has said that because of the Hastings uplift, we’ve had five inquiries into the behaviour and the practices of OT, and none of them have looked good. This social worker says that because of that, they cannot do their job without fear of public backlash, because they’re being seen to be doing something wrong, instead of standing up for the best practice—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.