General Debate

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

And not only do I move the debate, I demand the debate! Ms Collins has said that National can easily win the next election, but only if the National Party focuses on the things that matter to New Zealanders, to those Kiwis who deserve more. The National Leader has called on her caucus, apparently, to stay focused and to not get distracted by the bait that is laid their way by the Government. So she is going to stay focused on the issues that matter to New Zealanders, to those Kiwis who deserve more, apparently, such as the location of a portrait rather than some of the other things that might matter to New Zealanders, such as whether we can speak in two languages or not about our country. I am astonished, I have to say, at how long she was actually able to maintain her focus, between Friday afternoon and today’s “portrait-gate”.

Meanwhile, I actually do want to debate something that I think matters to New Zealanders a great deal more than the location of a painting—and that is climate change, something that I think is going to affect people a lot more than the location of a parliamentary painting. That is a debate that I am interested in having. Because, on Monday this last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their latest scientific assessment about the state of things in relation to our atmosphere and our climate. It is of critical importance that this House pays attention to contents of that scientific assessment. What it essentially says is that the modelling that people were arguing about 20 and 30 years ago has actually turned out to be completely accurate, that global temperature increases are roughly in line with what the modelling predicted. The big variation, however, is that the effects of climate change—the droughts, the floods, the fires, the storms—are happening sooner, they’re happening more frequently, and the effects are more severe than the modelling predicted. In other words, for most of the history of climate change policy in Aotearoa and around the world, we have thought about climate change as something that is happening in the future, somewhere else, to someone else—to polar bears in the Arctic, in the future, maybe. But what this report shows is that the floods in Germany, the fires in Greece and in Turkey, the fires in the Port Hills and Nelson, the floods in Westport and North Canterbury, the catastrophic droughts that we’ve seen in Australia, in the Midwest of the United States, the Californian wildfires, the Australian wildfires—all of those disasters can show a direct line back to human-caused climate change.

Now, we have always had floods and fires and droughts and storms, but, as the modelling was saying for years and years and years and years, climate change acts to exacerbate those, to increase their frequency, to increase their severity, to change the actual nature of the event itself. When we had those horrendous rainfalls in the top of the South, around the Tasman and Nelson region a year or two ago, one of the things that came out of that was that the nature of the rainfall had changed from previous similar events. So we were getting these kind of rain funnels, enormous amounts of water coming into the hillsides at once, rather than a more even spread that you might expect from a regular rain pattern. What our scientists here in Aotearoa were telling us about that is that that change in the nature of that rainfall is part of the effects caused by climate change. These are the kinds of events that the IPCC report on Monday pointed to. This is the kind of thing that we are seeing more frequently here in Aotearoa, not just around the world but here at home. I think we have been complacent in our response as a country, in part because we feel that we’ve been insulated from the effects, or we don’t have a lived experience of the overall event. That is why this House must pay attention to that report. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

As James Shaw mentioned earlier, we received the exciting news from the National Party conference that the National Party would have a laser-like focus on the issues that matter to New Zealand, and today we discovered what it is—the greatest issue of moment to New Zealanders: the positioning of artwork in the parliamentary corridors. But I can reveal to you today that this focus for the National Party has gone beyond one portrait. It is now a series of commissions that the National Party have asked for to ensure that we get the big issues that are facing New Zealand in front of the people of New Zealand.

The first artwork commissioned by Judith Collins is a graphical depiction of the National Party’s laser-like focus on policies in New Zealand. [Holds up an abstract expressionist painting] This followed on from Matt Doocey’s commissioning of the highlights of recent National Party caucus meetings through art. In this picture here we can see how those National Party caucus meetings have been going. [Holds up a painting of the assassination of Julius Caesar]

The next commission coming from the National Party to focus on the issues that matter to New Zealanders is actually a commission from the Young Nats depicting their views around the National Party’s position on conversion therapy—an image that may be familiar to some members. [Holds up a copy of The Scream]

Then the next one came from Simon Bridges. He actually wanted a painting depicting his favourite historical figure that could go outside of his office. [Holds up a portrait of the Hon Simon Bridges] So that has now been found—that historic figure.

Now “Goldie”—Paul Goldsmith—wanted a Goldie to go up beside his office [Holds up a copy of a C F Goldie portrait] but actually it turns out to be a fake, so it’s going to go up outside Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop’s office, given their position on conversion practices. Then it turned out that Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop already had a picture of themselves outside of their office, [Holds up a copy of American Gothic] so they actually didn’t need that. Then finally, in the commissioning of artworks, to focus on the issues that matter for the National Party, Christopher Luxon has finished this painting called The Last Supper and he has made some special arrangements to make sure that the real JC is put in the middle of the Last Supper.

Meanwhile, on this side of the House we are actually focused on the issues that matter to New Zealand and tomorrow morning we will respond to the report of Professor Sir David Skegg around the next steps in how New Zealand deals with COVID-19, and I do think this is a moment to focus on the things that the Government said we would do in this term. We would, firstly, keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19; we would accelerate our economic recovery; and we would focus on those big issues around housing affordability, climate change, and, indeed, child wellbeing. The keeping of New Zealanders safe from COVID-19 is the thing that enables us to do those other things that are important to New Zealanders, and while from time to time across the House and from their former leaders we hear that managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) has failed, no it hasn’t. MIQ has seen 162,000 people, more than the population of Hamilton, go through there and at the same time keep COVID out of New Zealand. I think the people who work in our MIQ facilities deserve a huge congratulation from New Zealanders; not being run down by members opposite or their former leaders. Time and time again, it has been the work done at the border that has keep New Zealand safe.

Our elimination strategy gives us some choices—they are not choices that are available to other countries—because we have worked so hard to keep COVID out; because we have had, tragically, 26 deaths but so many more would have happened had we not taken the approach that we took. Meanwhile, we’ve been able to see the economy deliver 4 percent unemployment, more people in work, a growth rate back to where we were before COVID. We’ve been able to do that because we’ve taken a health-led, evidence-based scientific approach. We haven’t flip-flopped around on what the issues are. We haven’t lost our focus to go on to the big issues of artworks. We have focused on making sure that our approach to COVID puts in place the values that I think New Zealanders would want us to do: to look after them, to make sure they still have jobs, to make sure there is still a future. Tomorrow, we will outline those next steps, but I am an immensely proud of where we’re at and I’m very positive about the future for New Zealand if we continue to take that approach.

We’ve become aware of two more secret documents that Willie Jackson has been working on. As well as He Puapua, there’s one around the number of friends Grant Robertson has in caucus, called “He Fewer-fewer”. There’s also another secret document around Louisa Wall—Louisa Wall, my friend and colleague, and the only Labour MP, in my view, with any fortitude. The secret document for her is how to manage Louisa Wall. It’s called “He Skewer-skewer”, and I understand “He Skewer-skewer” is co-authored by Grant Robertson, Chris Hipkins, and Megan Woods. Apparently there’s also movie rights for the three authors, modelled on a 1970s children’s show called H.R. Pufnstuf, where Grant Robertson will be played by H.R. Pufnstuf, a slightly odd, too descriptive, green dragon; Chris Hipkins will be played by a very needy Jimmy the talking flute; and Witchiepoo will be played by—well, I’ll leave it to your imagination of those three authors.

So while the Government flounders around in a fantasy, we want to talk about how to make New Zealand a great place to live and raise a family. I’ve actually found a travel commentary that will help that discussion. The travel commentary is from a recent rail trip, and it’s titled, “A train conductor’s commentary: Labour’s ghost train from Hamilton to Papakura”. This is the commentary that the train conductor announces to passengers, and I think it will serve our purpose comparing this Labour Government’s failings with the issues National are focusing on.

The commentary goes something like this: “Good morning to Labour’s ghost train from Hamilton to Papakura, and welcome to both of you. I’m sorry, it’s Helen and Heather? Nice to meet you both. And what do you do? Oh, you’re in charge of Labour’s policy and—oh, coronavirus transfers to Middlemore. Well, nice to meet you both. Ladies and gentlemen, two pieces of background information about the train before we start: this is Labour’s ghost train from Hamilton to Papakura, and have you got a deal, because your $50 ticket actually costs the taxpayer $25,000.” What I can share with you is that the National Party will not spend millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on a ghost train that would be better spent lifting incomes so New Zealanders can raise a family and get ahead. “Ladies and gentlemen, the second piece of information is that this train is also known as the slow train, for the two hours and 30 minutes it will take to get to Auckland.” The National Party believes that we need to get New Zealanders home to their families safely and quickly. “So settle in, ring the siren, sound the bell: rolling on.

“Now, after we leave the station today, our first stop will be the Mongrel Mob pad in Frankton, where we’ll pick up Willie Jackson and Marama Davidson. They’re working on another $2.57 million Mongrel Mob meth proposal.” National believes we need to make our communities safer and reverse the growth of criminal gangs. Rolling on.

“Labour’s ghost train is now passing through Ngāruawāhia, the home of Tainui and the Kīngitanga, and to the east we see Ngaruawahia High School.” National supports education as a key tool in lifting people to achieve their goals. Ngaruawahia High has a large proportion of Māori students, and we want to educate them, too, so that they, and all Kiwis, succeed globally. Rolling on.

“Our next stop reflects the fact that we know you are taking Labour’s ghost train today because you can’t travel overseas. Labour is so badly managing managed isolation and quarantine and vaccination that you can’t enjoy the sights and smells of overseas travel, but don’t worry, here we are at Huntly, and the smell of Indonesian coal.” Labour is so badly managing energy resources that we’re burning Indonesian coal at Huntly to keep the lights on. Rolling on.

“We’re now passing through the farming community of Pukekohe, where we see unharvested vegetables rotting in the ground.” This is because there are no workers and produce cannot be picked. Our farming people tell us that significant natural areas and freshwater and climate change policies are causing irreparable harm. National stands behind farmers, and every single one of our key policy initiatives has a rural component. Rolling on.

“Labour’s ghost train is modelled on an overall philosophy of centralisation and leaving New Zealanders behind, so we’re now at a level crossing just south of Papakura, where the carriages will spontaneously uncouple, just like the Labour Government has uncoupled from New Zealanders. And as the Labour ghost train moves further away from New Zealanders, stuck in the abandoned and stationary carriages, Helen, Heather, let’s all say together, ‘Ka kite, New Zealand’, and let’s do a verse of ‘Now is the Hour’ as we reflect on the number of people being added hourly to the waiting lists while Labour’s health policy puts more bureaucrats in Wellington and less into doctors and nurses.” National will ensure that we have quality healthcare and mental health services that retain medical professionals.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we know you’ve seen the crowd building. That’s because we’re approaching Papakura, which is where the leader of the National Party, Judith Collins, is based. She stands strongly at the head of the National Party caucus and says that we want to raise the quality of life for New Zealanders and give them a good life. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you’ve enjoyed travel today on Labour’s ghost train. Please let us know if you have. You can comment to us at www.whatawasteofmoney.co.nz.” Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Well, an interesting contribution. I just want to highlight that while we are very much focused on the serious issues, many of those serious issues aren’t often the easiest ones to address. Take, for example, responding to the pressing needs of COVID and putting the health of New Zealanders first. When members on the other side of the House wanted the borders open very quickly, without giving any consideration to the consequent impacts on our economy or on the health of our people, we resisted that particular move, because we knew that by keeping New Zealanders safe, putting a science- and evidence-based approach at the forefront of our thinking, and adapting to the science and evidence coming through along the way some one year later, we understand how important it is to balance both the social needs with the economic needs.

Then the other pressing issue was being mindful that we needed to ensure that we had a recovery strategy that was looking to invest in our regions, an approach that would keep doors open, local economies moving, but, again, all the while being mindful that COVID is a significant challenge. And we continue to focus on those long-term challenges that will actually help define what type of country we are, what type of economy we want to be, and that is why we are looking to address the issues of climate change.

I want to come back to our recovery plan and, in particular, one of the hard challenges, addressing waters infrastructure, because I recently announced a programme of work that would ensure that we could continue to move forward on a very significant set of changes that would position our country better. The depth of analysis that we’ve undertaken in the past four years demonstrates that not only is there a case for change but it is compelling and it is required, because the status quo is not enough. What we need to do is ensure that as every council is understanding and digesting the dense set of information to be able to move towards an approach to reform where everyone benefits, every resident and every household will benefit with the proposed changes. We too need to address the significant looming challenges of climate change that impact on councils, such as natural hazards that are happening more and more frequently, floods, fires, and the impact that that has on our residents in our communities. That’s why I am convinced that in reforming our three waters system, we are moving to a more affordable, sustainable system that will benefit all New Zealanders.

We know why we are pursuing these changes: (1) the current system isn’t financially viable or sustainable; (2) people are sick of being sick from having to cope with the impact of a vulnerable drinking-water system, no-swim notices for people who want to swim in their local beach or rivers, frequent boil-water notices in some of our smallest vulnerable communities, erupting sewer pipes into our streets, lead contamination in the water, consent-breaching sewage overflows into our urban rivers, streams, lakes, and beaches. We can’t sit by and wait. The Opposition would have us not do anything at all. These are some of the big, looming challenges. In fact, if I take some of the comments of the Opposition spokespeople in this area, they’re basically sending a signal to councils of “We’ll do whatever you want, and if you don’t want this, we won’t go there.”

This is a significant challenge that needs to be addressed. It is a challenge that we want to ensure that we can meet in order to underpin the type of recovery that will help us support regional economic growth, the creation of over 9,000 jobs, adding to GDP between $14 billion to $23 billion, and ensuring that the looming cost challenges over the next 30 years, of about $120 billion to $185 billion, can be met through reform. We know we need to pursue it. It’s not an easy issue. In fact, many of the challenges that this Government is meeting in relation to COVID, in relation to an economic recovery, in relation to addressing some of the foundational challenges that we have underpinning a successful economy is the type of approach that a responsible Government would meet, and I’m proud to be serving in it.

Sir Winston Churchill once said, “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” And, for the National Party, in terms of their reputation in the years to come, that’s about the only chance they have at the moment. Today, we caught an insight into the inner workings of the National Party and their total inability to focus on anything that actually matters to New Zealand, with their leader’s focus on the siting of artworks in the parliamentary corridors. But what was more concerning for me today, given the shift in the balance of power on the political right, was actually not what the National Party has to say, because from day to day their attempts to stir up rancid little culture wars have just kind of become the noise that we all hear for a few seconds and then block out—what was more concerning to me today, actually, were the comments of the ACT Party in response to our Government’s work to lead a responsible discussion about how New Zealand reconnects to the world in the time of COVID.

What we heard from the ACT Party is, in fact, what we have heard all the way along from them, which is that we should just put the evidence, the science, the focus on the wellbeing and the health of people to one side and just open up and risk it all. And what New Zealanders can see very clearly there is what it would be like under a Government of the right in this country. We would have a National Party weakened and shrunken, obsessed with trivial side cultural issues, and an ACT Party that would throw us open with the free-market zealotry that was so resoundingly rejected by our country after the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s. That would be what New Zealand would face under a National-ACT Government, and that is what we definitely do not need at this point in time.

This is a Government, on the other hand, that is focused on delivering on the things that really do matter for New Zealanders, and what can be more important in the world today than New Zealanders knowing and trusting that they have a Government that will continue to be vigilant, that will continue to keep them safe from COVID, and that will continue to listen to the experts and the science and put the health and the wellbeing of people first. Because, from that side of the House, time and time over the last 18 months, we’ve heard it from them: we should do what they’re doing in Australia, we should do what they’re doing in Sweden, we should do what they’re doing in Taiwan, in Vietnam. And time and time again, it has been the proven approach of this Government, in putting the wellbeing of New Zealanders first, that has paid off, and the good news is that not only has that ensured that New Zealand has preserved its COVID-free status, one of the only countries in the world to achieve that—and just look across the Tasman, at the struggles that our Aussie cousins are having at the moment, to know the strength of our approach—but, at the same time as we have achieved those outcomes, at the same time as we have kept our vulnerable people safe and healthy during the greatest public health challenge of the last 100 years, we have proven that, in prioritising the needs and the wellbeing and the health of people, we can actually look after the other things that are important as well.

This is a Government that is also delivering in terms of the economic rebuild from COVID—rates of growth as high as we had pre-COVID, almost record-low unemployment of 4 percent, hundreds of thousands of people getting back into the labour force, tens of thousands of young people taking up the opportunities of free trades training and apprenticeships to get jobs and build skills and make sure that we are set up to deliver the infrastructure that our country needs in the future. Things in New Zealand are going well, but these are challenging times and New Zealanders do need to know that they have a Government that is focused on these issues and not the sideshows of the Opposition.

We are delivering in transport as well, and over the last couple of weeks I have been very pleased to see the progress all around our country. Over the parliamentary recess, I joined with colleagues to open the new Puhinui interchange, a wonderful new train and bus station in South Auckland that will give Aucklanders the opportunity to use public transport to get to our airport. We dug the first sod on the Northwestern Busway. After the National Party widened the Northwestern Motorway, didn’t put any public transport capacity in, we’re coming back and giving the people of the north-west the ability to take public transport around their city. On Friday, I’ll be opening up the Awakino Tunnel, a part of the investments that we are putting into the regions to make sure that people have safe and fit-for-purpose transport infrastructure all around our country. And do you know what? In the first months of its operation, in July, the clean car discount saw 2,000 Kiwis buying new clean cars—a record month, the best we have ever seen.

This is a Government, unlike that lot, that is focused on what matters: keeping New Zealanders safe, advancing our economic recovery, and building the infrastructure of the future for Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this general debate. I want to just reflect on the recess. Many people ask me, “How was the recess? What did you get up to? Did you get a break?” Well, not really. Northland was really busy during the recess. We had more than eight Ministers visiting; we had visits, announcements, opening ceremonies. It was really a wonderful time for Northland and I am so proud to be the local MP.

It started off with the official ceremony for the expansion of the Ngāwhā geothermal power station, and I thought it was quite poignant to point that out this afternoon because the majority of Northland was unaffected by the power outage on Monday. In terms of that and, also, the recent unveiling, turning of the sod for the largest solar farm in Northland—and a few more to follow—I’m really proud of how we are setting up for our future with renewable energy.

It then followed with the Puketona roundabout, a $15 million investment by this Government. One of three new roundabouts that we are unveiling in the next coming weeks. So we’ve opened one. We also have the Kawakawa round about, which will be opening with the Minister of Transport next Friday.

Then it was on to Kaitāia, where Kelvin and I had a day with constituents. I just want to mention a group of young people that I met with, Tuhiata, where they came to me with a local issue of wanting to get rid of drug utensils from our local stores, something that I have brought back to Wellington to follow up on their behalf. I want to mihi to them for their advocacy.

I was then really honoured to host the Minister of Police, the Hon Poto Williams, where I was able to give her the opportunity to come deep into our communities, meet with our Northland leadership team of the New Zealand Police, but also to meet with our community advisory boards. We went and visited Te Ara Oranga, which is a methamphetamine programme between the Police and the DHBs and to hear success stories of that, and, also, we got to go to Moerewa, my home town, and meet with those who run Te Pae Oranga, one of our iwi community panels. I am so pleased that the Minister got to hear firsthand the impact that these Government funded programmes are having on justice issues in our communities.

Now, I also want to mention that she got to see a bit of that “Moerewa magic” and I hope that from that, she will see the success that that has had—that it should get support across the country. With $70 million, those panels are going to increase from the current 16 to two more very shortly, and up to 30 panels over the next four years. I believe it will truly make a difference for people’s experience in our justice system.

Then there was an announcement from David Parker for $400,000 to the Community Business and Environment Centre, where I took the Prime Minister to visit recently. They were successful in securing money from the Waste Minimisation Fund and they are going to be doing a composting project. The list continues, and I’m watching my time. The Prime Minister then returned, not even a month after her previous visit. She chose to come to Northland on her birthday and we were very pleased to host her. She made announcements for short-term roll-growth classrooms right across New Zealand, but in particular more than $11 million for Ruakākā primary school, Kamo High School, Whangārei Intermediate, Te Rangi Aniwaniwa, and Oruaiti.

We then went on to the Bay of Islands Hospital, where we were there to start the blessing of the stage two development for the hospital—a $14 million investment by this Government in our small hospitals out in the regions. That new facility will house the outpatients. It will have more primary care facilities—oncology, haematology, expanded renal care—and I’m pleased that it is in partnership with the local Māori health provider, the Ngāti Hine Health Trust.

The final visit was by the Minister of Conservation, Minister Kiritapu Allan, who came to Northland to announce over $20 million of funding for Jobs for Nature projects. Twelve projects in our region who are receiving support from that, with well over 300 jobs coming to Northland.

So it was a very busy recess. I am very proud of the work that this Government is doing. I’m proud to be the local MP; I am proud that we are delivering to our regions. I just want to use the final 30 seconds of my time, because it was one of the highlights for me, and that was the Speaker’s tour. The Speaker’s outreach tour came to Tai Tokerau. They went to our northern-most schools of Te Hāpua and Ngataki, and those young children living the furtherest away from Parliament got to experience Parliament in a mock debate, and, hopefully, it has made them feel like they are part of our democracy. Kia ora, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There’s something wrong in education in New Zealand, and parents are starting to worry. Our academic results in literacy, numeracy, science are heading downhill fast when compared with all other developed countries. We have a Government in denial. Changes in NCEA level 1 accounting, business studies, and economics, all becoming a generic “commerce”, show this Government’s priorities. Truancy rates are shameful: 67 percent of kids attend school regularly, and a report has been requested by the Education and Workforce Committee to try and find out why. We must get back to basics. All students who attend school regularly and can read and write will have a really good chance of succeeding in right. That’s a fact.

A teacher’s role is more difficult now due to successive Government policies, society’s expectations, and the way we’re told to treat young people. Teachers now have to be computer experts, writing reports that will probably never be read in case the Education Review Office turns up. They’re expected to be experts in their teaching field, but the teacher training leaves a lot to be desired. Here’s a quote from a trainee teacher: “I swear to God—and I’m not lying—we had one 1½ hour lecture on how to teach children to read.” That’s unacceptable. Teachers have to be social workers, truancy officers, dieticians—making sure parents have chopped their apples into small enough bites—and behavioural experts, dealing with an ever increasing range of abusive behaviours in the classroom that only a few years ago would’ve been deemed unacceptable. It’s a sad state of affairs when a student can tell a teacher to get “effed”, be dealt with by the school as they see fit, only for the school to be made to apologise two years later. Teachers also have to be sports coaches and mentors, after school and at the weekends—and I could go on. The pastoral care expected of teachers is hard work, and most of it used to be done by parents—as did early reading skills—and they get thanked with a wage freeze. Then these teachers have to go home and be parents to their own kids.

We have a Government that is not only obsessed with ramming its divisive agenda through every policy and bill it produces, but one that will quite happily make sure young people get the full force of this dangerous agenda. The proposed history curriculum is a perfect example of where this Government’s priorities lie. We all think New Zealand’s history should be taught in schools. It used to be—it was part of the social studies programme, and many projects were precisely aimed at informing each other about our history. But it did leave gaps, and these gaps should be filled with an honest, warts-and-all look at how New Zealand has developed over the last 200 years and beyond. We can’t cherry-pick history; it is what it is.

I come from Nelson. We have a fantastic Italian community who have been part of this country’s history for 160 years, and they’ve contributed heaps. Their story deserves to be heard, as do Nelson’s German settlers, who arrived in 1843 and without whom New Zealand’s wine industry wouldn’t be the same. My grandfather fought in World War I alongside the Māori, or Pioneer, Battalion against a common foe. I’m very proud of him and the contribution my ancestors have made to this country since 1842. We must teach our kids about the development of music, business, civil rights, science, and sport, in all of which every race of New Zealander helped shape this country to what we have today. The proposed history curriculum leaves very little room for these historical facts, and our kids deserve better.

The renaming and refocus of the Ministry of Education is a ridiculous, patronising document that deserves five minutes on it alone. Suffice to say, the Ministry of Education will now be called Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga, and the word “school” isn’t even mentioned in the document at all. That pretty much sums it up. I just wonder how many of the 1,500 new ministry ivory tower employees were involved in designing it.

We have a Government devoid of looking outside the square and that is more interested in preserving its union affiliations than caring for our young people. Mt Hobson Middle School in Auckland is a good example of a Minister who either doesn’t care or has just been too busy. With a proven history ticking all the boxes, we have a school desperate to get designated character school status and to fill a gaping hole in the education of diverse learners. But we have an out of touch Minister who thinks everything’s OK and ignores the anguish of parents who have to pay for their own teacher-aides for their children because the school can’t provide them. Charter schools worked, and ACT’s education policies put the kids first.

Schools should be the bastion of free speech, but even teachers are afraid to speak up in how they feel. Repercussions of saying what you want can destroy their careers. That’s really sad, because teaching is a fantastic, rewarding career. Parents have every reason to be worried about education.

Thanks, Madam Speaker. I’m really delighted to take a call today in this general debate. I am the Labour list MP based in the Bay of Plenty, and I thought it was important to begin by just talking about where the Bay of Plenty is. We are in Pāpāmoa. We start in Pāpāmoa, going from the Kaituna River, Arataki, Matapihi, Welcome Bay, Maungatapu, Hairini, Tauriko, and up to the Kaimais, and from the Wairoa River to Te Puna. The reason I thought I should say that is because we do not have the Port of Tauranga in that electorate. However, it’s a matter that is really important to us in the city. So we’re the outer suburbs of the city, and it’s a great community that I live in and play in.

I’m delighted to come here today to talk about the delivery that this Government has been performing. I’ve been in Parliament for nearly four years, and I thought about the reason why I came to Parliament. With your indulgence, I’ll just talk about that story a little bit. I was managing Tauranga Women’s Refuge at the time, and one of the reasons I decided—I remember the day that I decided—to come to Parliament, if I was lucky enough to represent this country, was I had a conversation with a family who had been in a safe house, and they were now safe in the community. They were due to leave the safe house, but we were unable to find them accommodation. We were unable to find them anywhere in the city to go, and the awful decision that came down to me was that I had to evict that family into homelessness in order to get them far enough up the list, in 2016, to get on to a waiting list to get into a home. So, essentially, they had a week at a time where they would be taken care of in a hotel.

That family chose to go back to the violence, and I felt morally corrupt. I felt morally corrupt having to give that choice to that family. So I came to Parliament because I was so utterly, utterly devastated by the state of housing in this country. As a consequence, I’m really proud to stand here today and talk about what we are delivering for this country. We have a long way to go.

💬 Nicola Willis: Biggest waiting list ever.

We have a long way to go. The biggest wait-list ever? At least we can get people on a wait-list. In my time, when I was working, people living in wooden shacks with floors—they couldn’t even get on the list, because they had coverage. Anyway, 8,000 extra warm, dry homes this Government has built. That is 74,337 public housing places between 2017 and 2021—8,121 more homes. This is a Government that is doing their very best—doing their very best—to help the people of this country.

One of the things that I think is really, really important to talk about is the fact that we have also increased—tripled, in fact—the community housing providers: $361 million. That’s three times what that Government was funding. This is about us looking at a problem—a wicked, difficult, intergenerational problem—and doing everything that we possibly can in order to fix that. I think that it is something that we can be proud of. There is more to do. There is always more to do in this matter, but we are making the effort, and I think that we are doing what is right for this country. We are concerned for the people of this country, and we are absolutely—absolutely—committed to fixing this wicked problem. We are delivering for New Zealanders. We’re doing our very best at a difficult time, but we are doing extremely well for the people of this country.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s fascinating that the only claim for delivery today has been a waiting list that’s approaching 30,000—sorry, a State house waiting list, the only claim to fame by this Government. And of course, because people—you’d expect it from me, I have to mention Sir Winston Churchill, because actually it’s not just what’s happened, but illustrative of actually what is beginning to happen with this Government. So a man who fought authoritarianism, fought fascism, fought against genocidal regimes, has been deplatformed by the Greens today—

💬 Hon Members: Ha, ha!

—who laugh, who laugh. They’re our modern-day iconoclasts, loving their cancel culture, getting rid of everything they don’t like. I’d actually encourage them to go and talk to their Māori Party colleagues because they are out there at the moment saying, “Te Ao Māori has no place for labels.”, which I think is probably a really useful thing the Greens could go to, because actually it doesn’t matter that he came from the UK or he may have been a Prime Minister elsewhere. He was a remarkable man. And according again to Te Paati Māori, Te Ao Māori, which I’m sure the Green Party loves, says there should be no labels. So that’s really important. Oh, by the way, and more of just an encouragement to my Labour Party colleagues, don’t tell the Green Party to walk down the Speaker’s corridor because there’s a picture there of Michael Joseph Savage and they might get a little bit upset about elements of his history, too.

So really important. Why? Because this is just indicative of what we get from the left wing. It’s about cancelling. It’s about deplatforming. This Government is pushing hate speech legislation. They’re passing a whole array of other legislation to limit what people can think and what people can say. It’s funny how they go quiet all of a sudden; they know it’s quite correct. As was intimated by someone earlier too, they’re trying to limit education, keep that well in control. No place for private schools. Watch out, integrated schools, they’ll be coming for you next because they can only be one source of truth—and that’s Jacinda Ardern.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Scaremongering.

Of course, they still like their little slogans. I think “scaremongering” has been thrown. It’s funny how the things we say do come true.

The only other thing I’d quickly end with on this, because I don’t want us to all be about Winston Churchill, but one of the things I’ve noticed is they go, “Oh, culture wars, we don’t want the culture wars here.” Isn’t it fascinating that the only people who say to us they don’t want the culture wars are the side that think they’ve already won? Hmm, ponder on that for a moment.

So, let’s also talk about the fact, you know, deplatforming, cancelling things—let’s talk about the They Are Us film very, very briefly. We’ve known actually—and I look after the arts and culture area and what’s been absolutely fascinating is three sets of erroneous answers from New Zealand Film Commission hiding, effectively, or what appears to be hiding, the truth of when the producers were in contact with the Film Commission. We were told it was only a few months ago. Then all of a sudden it was a year. In fact, it turned out to be two months—two months—after the shootings. The most open and transparent Government ever and its agencies couldn’t actually tell this Parliament through written questions—couldn’t tell me and others—the truth until the third attempt.

Then get this: we went to the select committee—myself, Melissa Lee, Louise Upston—and said, “Hey, we’d like the New Zealand Film Commission to come in and just have a little bit of a kōrero, a little bit of a chat. We’d like a bit at a time, we’d like it be pretty free-ranging.”, and it hasn’t gone so well. We were limited to 20 minutes in total. The thing to really keep in mind there, of course, we’re the Opposition; we only get 25 percent of that time and we’ve been severely limited in what we can talk about. The most open and transparent Government ever—let’s pull down the paintings, let’s pull down the statues, let’s limit the education system, let’s not allow parliamentarians to do their job. Oh, and by the way, let’s get freedom of speech in there. But, hey, let’s switch. Let’s switch from picking on the Government completely—no, let’s just keep going.

I want to turn local. In Tāmaki in recent months—the best electorate ever. No, this is great, no one’s complained about it. There’s clearly consent: best electorate ever. Six of my dairies in the last few months, six dairies, have been ram-raided—six dairies in several months, some of them three times ram-raided; often young people, most of them under 12 years. A real problem—

💬 Simon Watts: The same on the North Shore.

I hear my colleague Simon Watts saying, “The same on the North Shore.” We have a real problem with crime.

💬 Simeon Brown: What’s the Government doing about it?

The Government’s doing nothing about this. Ram raids by children, gun crime—there’s basically a shooting every day in South Auckland. The police crying out, the Mongrel Mob basically seeming to be running things. Was it $2.75 million being given to the Mob? We’ve got a real, real problem here. So I just want to return to where I started. The Government has proudly delivered almost 30,000 homeless. But I can also tell you, in the seat of Tāmaki they’re delivering more crime and more failure.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, members opposite are using their time pondering; we’re on the other side a Government of action—

💬 Hon Member: Busy.

—and busy, indeed. But yesterday the House, as part of a special debate, debated the Dawn Raids. I want to acknowledge and thank the contributors right across the House for their contributions that were shared yesterday. Now, I was not born at the time of the Dawn Raids, but members of my Cook Island family were, and the pain that they and others endured, whether it be physical, whether it be emotional pain, obviously lasted for many years and no doubt has been a stain on New Zealand’s historical record as well.

I guess it has been difficult for members of our Cook Island, our Niuean, our Tokelauan, and our Māori communities, because they have been New Zealand citizens at birth and they were New Zealand citizens who were subjected to treatment that was racially motivated, inhumane, unethical, and unfair. So I want to place on record my thanks to the Government for doing the right thing in delivering an apology to our communities that has been widely accepted by Pasifika, pan- Pasifika and non-Pasifika communities, in it being in a culturally acceptable and appropriate way. So my thanks particularly to the Prime Minister and the Government for that.

The goodwill gestures that go alongside the apology will make a difference. As we heard in the House yesterday, words are significant, but actually Pasifika traditions are largely orally based, and so the goodwill gestures will go some way. The development of new Dawn Raid resources to support an accurate historical account of what happened; the Dawn Raids being taught in Aotearoa New Zealand schools, kura, whether it be through the historical or social science programmes; and obviously the provision of educational scholarships for members of the Pasifika community will go a long way. So in that sense, the Government apology has been well received.

But what also has been well received in my local community is that we are a Government of substance, we are a Government in action, and we are a Government that is delivering for the fine people of Palmerston North. For example, we are focused on the issues. For example, at last count, 13 Palmy schools are benefiting from Ka Ora, Ka Ako, the healthy school lunches programme. And actually, like others during the recess, I saw for myself the difference that this programme is making in local schools: in actual fact, tamariki of Terrace End School, where barriers are being removed for them and their whānau, where children are ensured that they receive nutritious meals, but also meals that meet their dietary and cultural needs as well, and more schools continue to come on board. Actually, Terrace End School is the same school that benefited from part of the $8.5 million allocation of building announcements made last week by the Minister of Education.

In addition, another school, Freyberg High School in Palmerston North, again, will also benefit from that same pool of money and actually having 11 of their teaching spaces brought up to modern standards. This, of course, is on top of the School Investment Package funding that schools all around the country have received. Just last week, principals that I met with were again thanking the level of support from Government for delivering for the community of Palmerston North.

But it doesn’t stop there. We have small businesses in Palmy who have benefited from interest-free loans that total $52 million. That’s right, $52 million to continue supporting—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: How much?

—$52 million—to continue supporting local business needs. Kāinga Ora in Palmerston North are delivering public housing—the first time in many, many years. Good, solid, warm, healthy homes for whānau in my community. The most recent I visited were in Exeter Crescent and Kupe Place just this week as well, and we have excited whānau who want to move in.

On Friday, some of my colleagues are on a field trip to the mighty Manawatū and they will see firsthand progress with Te Ahu a Turanga, the Manawatū Tararua Highway—it will commence construction in January, a $620 million Government investment. They will see the good work of Food HQ. They will see the next stage of the Papaioea Place housing development, something that has been led by the local council in partnership with the Government to the tune of $4.7 million. And of course, that was recently opened by the Prime Minister visiting Palmy last month. Some good work is happening.

In conclusion, I want to actually wish happy birthday to my youngest brother, James Nikau Utikere, who turns 18 today. I do that because I’m proud of the fact that we are a Labour Government that delivers for 18-year-olds. We deliver for under-18-year-olds. We deliver for over-18-year-olds. We deliver for Māori, Pasifika, new migrant communities, for businesses, for organisations, and for the people in my mighty and fine, beautiful electorate of Palmerston North. It’s a wonderful time to be in Labour. It’s a wonderful time to be part of a Government that is delivering for our communities around the motu. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to be speaking in this general debate. I would like to talk about our education system. People contact us on a daily basis with their concerns about our education system. We know that if we want to have world-class living standards and world-class income, we have to have a world-class education system. My goodness, the alarm bells should be ringing at the moment. I listened to the previous speaker who talked about what they are delivering for under-18-year-olds. I’ll give him a very clear of picture of what’s delivering. I’m disappointed that Minister Willie Jackson is leaving, because I was going to give him credit for the—

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: I’m here!

Don’t leave, don’t leave—for those charter schools.

So we should be looking with concern at what’s happening in our education sector. In 2018, our performance in maths put us in the bottom half of OECD countries: 22nd out of 37. We used to be fourth. Our education standards have been falling under the watch of Chris Hipkins. Students who attend regularly pass NCEA. Students who are absent half of the time fail NCEA. We are getting very close to half of our school students not attending school nine days out of 10. Who are the worst with absenteeism? It is our Māori and our Pasifika students that are attending less than anyone else.

Now, we used to have a bit of a solution here. They were called charter schools. They had in their contract a requirement for high attendance. None of our State schools have such a requirement. So despite all this virtue signalling by the current Labour Government that they are doing so much for our Māori young, they are doing very, very little, except setting them up for failure.

We know that our prison population is full of people who have significant numeracy and literacy challenges. So our young Māori and Pasifika students who are not attending school regularly; we are setting them up for failure, for gang recruitment, for unemployment, and for poor health outcomes. That is not acceptable, and my golly, there might be some apologies in the future being needed.

This Government has been fixated on lifting incomes through artificial means like lifting minimum wage and restricting new migrant labour. They didn’t care how much that impacted on our businesses. But the only real gains in income you get is when they are sustainable through increased productivity. Increased productivity only occurs when we have people with the right skills and the right qualifications. From early childhood through to primary and secondary school, through to tertiary education, we must ensure that New Zealanders are being equipped with the skills and attributes that will help to grow this economy.

The National Party has always understood the power of education. That is why the last National Government set and achieved ambitious targets to improve NCEA outcomes for school leavers and particularly for Māori and Pasifika students. National understood that one size doesn’t fit all and that we must provide choices for people to learn in different ways. For example, the charter schools, which provided better cultural context, better experiential learning, and a much better environment for many people to learn under—but the previous Labour-led Government took that choice away, and Minister Willie Jackson should be ashamed of that. He owned one, he knew how successful they were, and he should never have let it happen.

In 23 years leading the Southern Institute of Technology, I saw the transformative power of second-chance education. But Minister Hipkins has systematically gone about disestablishing that wonderful vocational education sector because he has an ideology that central is better. He took a $40 million problem and he turned it into a $120 million solution by spending more and more on layers of bureaucracy, layers of management, he took the accountability away—

Order! The member’s time is up.

Kia ora. I’d like to start, today, my speech just by a little rebuttal there for Penny Simmonds. On Friday, I took a caucus tour through a whole lot of really amazing place in Auckland, and one of them was the Media Design School. It’s an absolutely wonderful university-type arrangement—so it’s after you have finished school, you go in and you actually do all sorts of things that are associated with gaming, and they’re associated with creative production—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: It’s a private training establishment (PTE). Remind your colleagues, because they hate PTEs.

—and I’d actually like to finish my speech. In that tour, I was really impressed with the people who were teaching there. I was impressed by their enthusiasm, but I was mostly impressed by the students. They were learning new things, they were getting good jobs, and they were very, very delighted to see a whole lot of Labour MPs listening and taking notes. They had a really interesting combination of objectives. Yes, they were profit-making, but they also absolutely stood by a social justice principle, so they were taking people who wouldn’t have necessarily been to a university and they were turning them into very creative, happy, high-end learners and earners, and it was a wonderful thing to see. So thank you to the Media Design School for hosting us.

I wanted to talk today just about transport in Auckland Central, because we really have seen a whole lot of delivery and change in that area, and we’re in the midst of it. I wanted to talk about one other place where we visited on that tour, which was a woman called Kirsten Corson is running something called Zilch. Zilch is a car sharing fleet, so it has cars you can go—they’re all electric—you can go and hire them, you can subscribe to them.

They also provide a service where—it’s another enterprise, but it’s connected, and it’s called Carbn Asset Management. They’ll go and they’ll look at your fleet and they’ll decide what kind of cars you need and when you use them, they’ll make sure people are sharing those cars. That is a way of actually maximising the use of an asset, but it’s also incredibly good for congestion, and it’s good for consumers because they’re not actually shelling out a whole lot of money. They’ve also got a business that finances electric car fleets. All of those things are things that this Government supports. Two of those enterprises, the Government has put in $5.8 million into supporting, and they’re all absolutely connected by a spirit of activism in the area of, really, environmental change. I was absolutely impressed with her, as were my colleagues, and to see somebody doing something like this and absolutely being supported by the Government, and nurtured by the Government, is a wonderful thing. My bouquets go out to her for doing something so brave and so innovative that will transform the streets of Auckland.

I also want to talk, just briefly, about the City Rail Link, because this is something that is actually going to be—it’s very hard earned, in Auckland, we’ve got a lot of traffic cones, a lot of inconvenient, a lot of heartbreak while it’s being done—but at the end of it, we are going to have an absolutely amazing city. We’re going to have a subway, and it’s going to connect our rail, and it’s going to mean that a lot more people can come into the city, it’s going to extend the range of where people can live, and it is going to absolutely transform our city. I’m hoping that, by the time it happens, we will be in a world of electric buses, electric ferries, and we’ll be in a world where we have a pedestrianised Auckland Central, where people can actually live and they can work and they can take their kids to school by foot. That’s what I want to see. I want to see an Auckland Central where we can scooter, we can bike, and we can walk, and we can do so in an environment which isn’t actually full of pollution. Because one of the other effects that we’ve got, the kind of structure we’ve had for so long, is that we have a city that actually has really poor air quality, and people die of it. I just really want to see this become a much healthier environment. This Government has supported that plan. So have the council, and, again, applause to the council. The master plan is a really good plan. I urge people to look at it, and I urge people to support it, even through the times when it’s quite difficult to live with. So thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.

I declare the House in committee for further consideration of the Appropriation (2021/22 Estimates) Bill.