General Debate

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

Last Tuesday, the National Party’s Grabaseat sale reached its latest chapter. Chris Luxon took over and upgraded, and I congratulate him on that. But if you’re looking for a man of the people, “Get your power tools at Bunnings” kind of vibe, hiring a black Mercedes to drive across the road doesn’t really fit it, and, in fact, exhibit A, as I have it here, would show you that Mr Luxon’s journey of productivity didn’t start well. [Holds up map of the parliamentary precinct with route of travel highlighted] What would have been a quick, two-minute stroll across the road turned into a four-minute drive, not a productive drive. I do note that it required Mr Luxon to travel straight for 43 seconds before turning right for a minute, turning right again, turning left, turning right again—this will be the pattern of his leadership until such time as he comes to turn the page.

We have heard a great deal of corporate life-coach waffle over the last few days from the National Party. It’s all about turning the page in the National Party’s long-running saga, “Fifty Shades of Beige”. But, unfortunately, the corporate life-coach waffling is now catching in the National Party. Yesterday, Simon Bridges went all Zen on us and said, “Yesterday is yesterday. Today is the future.”, leaving out the critical final line: “And tomorrow, there’ll be another leader.”

But it was for former leader Todd Muller, who took this to a new level, as he spoke of taking off the “backpack of grievance”, and I say good on Todd Muller. Leave that backpack at the caucus door, because there’s heaps of people who want it, and it does beg that question of who will pick up the backpack of grievance and its inbuilt speed dial for the press gallery. Will it be Todd McClay, will it be David Bennett, or will it be Judith Collins from seat 19C, by the aisle, ready to push the call bell? But, unfortunately, she’s already heavily laden down with her handbag of hostility.

But there is plenty of baggage to go around in the National Party. There’s Simon Bridges’ satchel of stolen dreams, Michael Woodhouse’s duffle bag of despair, Paul Goldsmith’s kete of misgivings, and he was able to hand on to Andrew Bayly the bumbag of bungled fiscals, and all of it is kept inside the caucus threadbare sack of unity, because we know that members on the other side of the House will hold it together just for a moment before it’s Grabaseat sale No. 10.

Meanwhile, on this side of the House, we are focused on making sure that New Zealand gets through COVID-19, and I want to acknowledge today the leadership of the Prime Minister in doing so, because throughout the time we’ve had COVID and the numerous National Party leaders who have come and gone during that period, they’ve wanted to open up the border and they’ve wanted to lift restrictions, and all the way through we have had the steady leadership of the Prime Minister. That has led to the lowest mortality rate in the OECD, one of the lowest rates of hospitalisation in the OECD, and an economy that sees one of the lowest unemployment rates, at 3.4 percent—growing in the last quarter at 2.8 percent.

Time and time again in this House, we’ve heard the call from the Opposition to “Open the border.”; “Close the border.” It takes consistency, it takes leadership, and that’s what the Prime Minister has shown and I want to thank her for that.

But, on top of that, I want to thank those people all around New Zealand who are doing the fantastic work to get our people vaccinated. Today, we stand with just four DHBs not at that 90 percent first dose, and I’ve told Damien O’Connor to go out and find the eight remaining people on the West Coast who will get them to that. Those vaccinators all around New Zealand are our heroes. They are the people who mean that New Zealanders will be safe over this summer, and I thank and congratulate them for everything they are doing for us.

Well, if no one else wants to take the call, we’ll move along—David Seymour.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This has been an absolutely tremendous year, and I want to thank people from right across New Zealand, from right across the political spectrum, from all walks of life, who have come to support ACT, and they’ve come to support ACT for a couple of simple reasons. They see politics not working in New Zealand. They see a Government that leads by spin, that dissembles, and that’s one party, but the other that vacillates and goes from one jibe to the other, sometimes playing “me too” and sometimes criticising with negativity. That’s why people come to ACT. They see that at the end of all this, they have a country that is among the last to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, except maybe China.

The only other country that is trying to maintain an elimination strategy is the Chinese Communist Party - governed People’s Republic of China. We nearly ended up in an elimination bloc of countries where one country’s a communist dictatorship and the other one is China. But we are leaving the elimination strategy, last in the world with a mountain of debt and rising prices to boot, because we’ve been sustained through this pandemic by two oceans—the literal oceans that have kept the virus from our shores. Isn’t it incredible the way the Prime Minister congratulates herself almost daily for quarantining a remote group of islands in the far stretch of the Pacific?

The other oceans that have sustained New Zealand through are the oceans of printed and borrowed money that they’ve pumped into the economy. Well, the chickens are coming home to roost, and New Zealanders—hard-working middle New Zealand—are squeezed from every angle as those oceans of cheap money that sustain this Government’s COVID response start to overwhelm them with rising prices at the petrol pump, at the supermarket. Hell, we even heard yesterday that it could be $7 for a cup of coffee. Isn’t that going to hurt the Labour Party beltway?

We will, as a country, pass through the debt. We will pay it down in a generation. New Zealand has been through this before, but there are so many things we could do to make it easier. And here’s one simple example: we are not going to allow our universities, our schools, our colleges to compete in the world for international students until April, or maybe even August, depending on which country they’re from. In Canada and Australia, the universities, the education sector, have the welcome mat out and are competing for international students right now for the year 2022.

Then there’s the supply of labour for our horticultural industries, for skilled labour, for so many businesses trying to grow—they can’t get people, and when there’s no one to work, the wages are going up and every price with it.

Now, can the Government explain why it’s going to be safe to open up the borders in a month’s time for some people, in four months’ time for others? It’s safe to do it today in New South Wales, but it’s not safe to do it in New Zealand. Of course they can’t, and they do not understand the cost that they’re imposing. But, like I say, we will survive this expensive—you know, the Prime Minister calls it “cautious”; I call it “costly response to COVID-19”. But this country is being damaged in much more profound ways.

You just have to ask yourself, if the Director-General of Health says we don’t need any roadblocks in Northland, why are the police still operating them? Well, the answer is they are there to babysit a minority of so-called leaders from Northland, such as Hone Harawira, who have said they’re going to cause trouble anyway if the police aren’t there. That’s the truth. And the people I represent in central Auckland, they don’t get the cops coming when their stores are robbed and they call them because the police are busy manning borders the public health advice says shouldn’t even exist.

That’s the real damage this Government is doing. Instead of creating an inclusive society, we don’t even know who’s running the cops anymore in this country. There is a better way. ACT offers a better way, and we thank so many people who have come to support us as they see it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. You know, in the midst of advice and theory and speculation, nobody really knew how this country would respond post COVID lockdowns. One sector that has done extraordinarily well—despite all of the issues that have befallen it—is the construction sector. The construction sector has gone to extraordinary lengths to build houses and to build infrastructure. It’s with the proactive support of this Government that our construction sector has thrived in this environment. Those that we expected to be most impacted by COVID have been most impacted by COVID: Māori, Pacific, and women. And yet, in the construction sector with the use of the Construction Skills Action Plan and the partnership with the Construction Sector Accord, those groups in particular have been so well represented that the numbers of those Māori, Pacific, and women in the construction sector have increased.

If I can just share with you some of the fantastic news that has happened in the sector, and I shared a little bit of that earlier today. We have gone from using the Construction Skills Action Plan, which had a target of 4,000 people into education and employment opportunities in the construction sector—that has exceeded the number of people in the sector by seven times to 29,000, and that’s just one opportunity that has been taken advantage of. Very early on in the development of the Construction Sector Accord, the partnership between the sector and the Government—when we were plunged into our first lockdown, the relationship that we now have with the construction sector is such that we were able to develop with them a way to safely bring the sector back on board at level 2. So one of the few sectors that opened up after the first lockdown was the construction sector—able to then continue on the massive house build programme that is being undertaken in this country. A record number of consents across the country and an unexpected, really, return to some great work in the sector.

And what else is happening to support the sector? So there is other work that we are doing to support the sector by a legislative reform. One of the pieces of work we have done is to ensure that we can build faster through the changes we have made in the modular construction framework. So we’re able to build faster, but not only that, we’re now supporting—

💬 Hon Member: Are you the Minister of Police or not?

I am actually the Minister of Police, but I’m also the Minister for Building and Construction and I just want to tell you about the magnificent work that the building and construction sector is doing. And the work that we’re doing around Licensed Building Practitioners. We know that in Christchurch, for example, that we a huge issue with the ability to know that our engineers were actually registered and working to their practice. The work that we’re doing around supporting the development of some key criteria around Licensed Building Practitioners will give the sector some sense of security that we’re able to continue to do—

They are a real rabble today, Mr Speaker. I’m not sure if you’re getting this, but they are a little bit of a rabble today.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: I’m recording this, sell it as a cure for insomnia!

Oh, are you falling asleep, Mr Brownlee! Let me help you with more good news then, shall I? The diversity into the—

💬 SPEAKER: Well if he is, the member’s sleep talking pretty loudly!

Yeah. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Let me just say that there are some amazing opportunities today—as we celebrate oranging the world for women—in the building and construction sector. The Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation apprentices say that about 5 percent of women apprentices in the BCITO are women. That’s up from 3 percent in 2019. [Opposition members applaud] Oh, thank you! What a disgraceful bunch of people.

Well, what a difference a week makes. That’s all I can say, is what a difference a week makes, because, finally, Grant Robertson does some work. He puts it into his speech—sadly, not into the economy. “Mr Business Premier” thinks it’s all about Business Premier, it’s all about the economy, it’s all about the people of New Zealand. He goes up and gets stitched up—the Labour Party leadership transition—so he’s all ready to go. I think that’s a shame, because poor Chris Hipkins doesn’t get a go, lovely Michael Wood doesn’t get a go. I reckon it would be a lot more fun if Willie Jackson had a shot at it. He’d make it interesting for us. Mr Mallard, maybe?

But what I want to say is that New Zealand—don’t you feel New Zealand’s a great country? I mean, I’ve lived and worked all round the world, and I can tell you this is the best place on planet Earth. But what I can tell you is in this place we also have a little bit of straight talk and we say it as it is, right? What we have to say is that New Zealand is losing its way, OK, and I can tell you why—I can tell you why. It’s this Government here. You see it in their eyes. They look tired. They’re looking forward to Christmas. Kris Faafoi’s there—look at him. I mean, he’s tired. He’s waiting for Christmas. The reindeers are running out of puff. He’s running out of puff. He’s lost the way. What I want to say—you can just see it. What’s happening is this is a Government that does the PR, it likes the spinning but it actually doesn’t deliver and it doesn’t get things done.

We heard about that today. We heard about the everyday New Zealanders who are out there waking up this morning, going to work, paying their taxes, getting their kids to school, dealing with the congestion, and they can’t get ahead. They can’t get ahead, because why? Because wages are half the rate of costs. Costs are up twice the rate that they’re going. I want to tell you that parents, when you talk to the mums and dads, they’re worried about education. They know that they need their kids to have a world-class education. But what’s the Government doing here? Absolutely nothing. Sixty percent of our kids make it to school regularly—unbelievable. We’re in the bottom in maths, reading, and science in the world. So that doesn’t set their kids up for a world-class education, either.

What’s very obvious to us is this Government doesn’t care about small business. They seem to think that sitting here in Wellington, they get to make everything happen in this economy. They don’t realise that it’s the punter that wakes up each morning, takes a risk, gets out there, makes something happen, wants to get ahead for themselves and their family—

💬 Hon Member: A battler.

The battler—exactly, that’s what it is. It’s a battling New Zealand that’s out there who wants to go make it happen. What we’re watching here is a Government that’s not supporting them. They think they create the jobs, but it’s actually that individual, that small-business person, that actually employs the people, makes it happen. What we’ve seen here is a great leap backwards to centralisation and control, back to the 1970s, back to centralised Fortress New Zealand. That’s essentially what’s happening, and that’s a shame. It’s a shame when you see enterprise taken out of the lifeblood of a country like New Zealand. People lack the confidence to go out there and give it a go, lack the ambition. They say, “Why do I bother?”, because of what this Government does in terms of treating economy and small business.

But there’s another group that this Government doesn’t care about, and it’s our rural communities. I’ll tell you what: they really don’t care about or value our farmers. They’re not their people. It’s very obvious. I can tell you farmers aren’t villains, because, actually, they generate $9,000 on export earnings for each and every New Zealander in this country. They’re the people that drive 80 percent of our exports. They employ 350,000 people. But I can tell you they’re doing it really tough under this Government, because they don’t care about them. They just load them up with costs and regulation. Think about it: significant natural areas, the Water Services Bill, slope rules, wetlands, freshwater regulations, and, literally, the farmer is sitting there on the other side of a tennis net being served 10 tennis balls at a time and they don’t know which one to hit. I can tell you that industry is very, very special. The people are strategic. They care deeply. It’s an incredible industry to be part of. They synthesize economy, agriculture, sustainability.

But the worst thing is this Government’s become arrogant. It’s become really arrogant, and it’s become arrogant fast. You know, the reality is they had lots of promises, lots of announcements, lots of spin—no delivery. Lots of wasteful spending, lots of bloated bureaucracy, lots of centralisation control, “we know best”.

But what I want to tell you is that there is hope. I want to tell New Zealanders that there is hope. Hope is coming to a town near you, and it’s in the form of a refreshed new National Party. We’ve reset. The National Party is back. We know how to put aspiration, ambition, confidence, and mojo back into this country. We’re not going to go play a small, fearful, inward-looking game. We’re out there in the world going to happen to our future rather than let it happen to us. So, New Zealand, the National Party is back. We’re reset, we’re united, we’re focused, and we’re ready to go.

It’s the last general debate of the year; so I would like to acknowledge the new Leader of the Opposition and wish him the appropriate amount of luck. The former chief executive of Air New Zealand—my only substantive interaction with him when I was the member of Parliament for Mana was when we was cutting flights to Kāpiti Airport. So the man who just told us that he cares about the regions, about small-town New Zealand, was cutting flights to Kāpiti, cutting flights to Nelson, cutting flights to Gisborne. That is exactly his background in corporate New Zealand. But, again, I wish the new Leader of the Opposition the best of luck. A week is a long time in politics. I look forward to next week in the National Party caucus!

It is the last general debate of the year. So we deserve some acknowledgments. I want to start with my colleague Marama Davidson, the co-leader of the Māori Party, because it is a very special day and we are marking it by wearing orange. I want to acknowledge the work that she has undertaken to get to the point where Te Aorerekura was launched earlier this week in order to make sure we are eliminating sexual and family violence in New Zealand. That hard work over many, many months and years has come to fruition, and it will make a big difference to our families and our partnerships in New Zealand, and I want to acknowledge the hard work to get to the point where we are today.

It has been a difficult year but a year where the leadership of the Government has made a huge difference to the lives that New Zealanders live. The leader of the ACT Party was saying it’s been a costly year, and it depends on how you look at cost, because we’ve got the lowest rate of hospitalisations, the lowest number of cases, and the lowest number of deaths in the developed world, per capita, here in New Zealand. So, if you want to talk about costs, what is cost? Would the ACT Party prefer it if we had more hospitalisations? Would they prefer that we had more cases? Would they prefer that we had more deaths due to the COVID outbreak? Because that is a cost that this Government isn’t willing to entertain, and actually I want to acknowledge all the New Zealanders, and especially Aucklanders, who have got us to this stage where we are right now, where, in a week’s time, they will be all free and we will be able to enjoy a relatively normal Christmas compared to what we have had over the last six months in those conditions.

I want to acknowledge all the hard work of the people at the front line: the people who are doing vaccinations, the people who are helping us scan, the people who are helping us with our COVID vaccine passes, and the businesses and the organisations who are making sure that they adhere to that. And I acknowledge that, because we’ve been through nearly a week of life with the COVID vaccine pass, and I’m sure many members around the House and people who may be listening and watching have actually found that most New Zealanders get it. So don’t listen to the negativity, and increased negativity, from the other side of the House, because New Zealanders have got this. They realise that the decisions we’ve been making over the last 20 months have kept us safe, and they want to continue doing it, because everyone has worked hard to make sure we can do it. When you go to a basketball game to watch your kids, and they’re over 12, everyone gets it. If you want to go into the gym and you’ve got your vaccine pass, they scan it and they let you in. New Zealanders get it, and we’re transitioning into that new world of making sure that we can keep Delta at bay from our communities, making sure we’re keeping New Zealanders safe and New Zealanders healthy, and New Zealanders get it.

I want to acknowledge the work of my colleague Aupito William Sio as well, and my Pacific colleagues as well, because, for a community of Pacific Islanders here in New Zealand, we thought there were going to be big challenges to get us vaccinated. We’re now at the point where we’re 92 percent first-dose vaccinated across the country, and that is huge. But the work is not over. We’ve got to keep having those discussions, having days like Barbara Edmonds organises in Porirua, to make sure we’re getting those second doses, getting those boosters, having those conversations with our families to make sure we’re keeping ourselves safe.

So my final message isn’t one for the people in this room; it’s for the people outside of this place, to make sure we keep doing what we’ve done for the last 20 months. We got to stay the course, we’ve got to keep vaccinated, we’ve got to keep doing the simple things that are keeping our children and our families safe, to make sure that we can have a Christmas, to make sure that our elderly are safe from the ravages of COVID, those who have pre-existing conditions in our communities are safe from the ravages of COVID. We have worked hard to get to this point, and we’ve got to stay the course.

So I wish you all a very merry Christmas, but, while we’re having that merry Christmas, keep our families and our communities safe by making sure you do the right thing, that we’ve done over the last 20 months because of the leadership of this Government.

Thank you. Well, we’ve heard a lot about changes to do with COVID and the economy, but in actual fact nobody is actually talking about the most racist legislation in this House, which is the electoral law. The electoral law for a long time has locked Māori out from participating in this country’s democracy for over eight years at a time. So if I take, for an example, the last time you could change on the electoral roll was 2018. Between 2018 and the 2020 election, 16,000 people got in contact with the Electoral Commission to change rolls. They cannot change rolls until 2024, so they’ve missed the 2020 election, they will miss the 2023 election, and the next election that they will be able to vote on is 2026.

This has been suppression since 1867, when the four Māori electorates were set up to limit the representation we had in this place. Māori were 47 percent of the total population at that particular time. If it was a democracy then, it would be a different story, but at this particular time, I want to highlight to this House that under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, we should have 50 percent representation in this House. Under equity, we should have 25 percent in this House. Under equality, if we are 16 to 18 percent of the population, we should have that percentage in this House. We don’t get either one of those—we don’t get either one of those.

So what I’m saying today is that I have submitted my member’s bill today. That member’s bill specifically talks about allowing Māori to change between the Māori and the general electoral rolls at any time; to change the periodic requirement to redraw electoral boundaries from after each census to a set date two years after each general election; to set a legislation requirement that if someone stipulates they are Māori when enrolling but doesn’t choose an electoral roll, they are placed on the Māori electoral roll; and change the name of the general electorate district to the non-Māori electorate district. This is the problem: you’ve got a Māori roll and then a general roll, and then you hold the general elections.

This is why this whole electoral law—well, I’m glad Mr Faafoi’s walked back in here so he can hear this—needs to be changed, but it needs to be guided by Māori to allow us a greater participation in our democracy, because we do not get it. It is the only law that locks indigenous peoples out for an eight-year period. Where are you going, Mr Faafoi? You’re supporting. He gave me a chest pump. I look forward to when he makes those changes within that particular ministry.

The bill would amend the Electoral Act 1993 to enable Māori voters to switch between the Māori and the non-Māori electoral rolls at any time. This is the problem. It is not allowing us to do that at any time. We still have prejudice when we have our tamariki trying to sign up to an electoral roll that has already been predetermined. It is already ticked on there, “I am Māori and choose to go on the general roll.” We have evidence of that, because we have people send us those things on a daily basis. As they enrol onto a roll, it’s already got a pre-ticked circle on their enrolments. This is the disgrace that our people face every time they go into this electoral process.

So we get this every three years. The problem is, it also determines our participation at local government elections. We all need to take responsibility for this. It’s high time that this country and the parties in this House start to take responsibility for the changes of that bill and support it. By not supporting this bill, it will continuously and consciously choose to actively participate against a Tiriti-centric Aotearoa. We need to recognise the mana of Te Tiriti o Waitangi that our ancestors, both mine, both tangata whenua and tangata Tiriti agreed to. Our ancestors signed this together. If we look at it as a waka hourua—a waka hourua, a double-hulled waka. On one side, you have Kāwanatanga; on the other side you have mana motuhake. One side is tangata Tiriti; one side is tangata whenua. The thing that joins that waka hourua, that double-hulled waka, is Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We must grow this together. This is not about a difference between us—

💬 SPEAKER: Order! The member’s time has expired.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe, otirā, tēnā tātou katoa. Greetings. Afternoon, everybody. It’s really wonderful to have this opportunity in what I think will be my last general debate speech for the year. So in case I run out of time at the end, I want to say it at the beginning: meri Kirihimete to everybody. It has been a really long and challenging year. I’m really looking forward to the Christmas break and some time up North with my family.

But I want to talk about our move to the COVID-19 Protection Framework and the traffic light system. For COVID, there has been no playbook—we’ve heard this—but I’m so proud of our team of 5 million. To my colleagues who are in Cabinet and to every single one of us who have worked together to protect one another, we’ve done that by lockdowns, by wearing our masks, by scanning in, by getting vaccinated, to protect not only ourselves but to protect our communities. And thanks to our successful response, we have protected lives and livelihoods. We have the lowest number of cases, hospitalisations, and deaths in the OECD, and we should be really proud of that, because we have worked so hard to protect those lives and to protect livelihoods. Our economy is in good shape. So I want to mihi to all of our teams who have been out there vaccinating.

As I have travelled around Te Tai Tokerau in the last month since my last general debate, I have seen vaccination waka outside Roma Marae in Ahipara, at the Kaeō rest area as I was driving through last Friday, at the Moerewa Christmas vaccination event, at the Taipā Point Reserve Maheatai visit that we had recently, the doctors’ surgeries, pharmacies, our DHBs popping up all over the place, as well as our Māori providers. It has been a huge effort. I’m really pleased to say that the Northland DHB advises that we are on the brink of 80 percent double vaxxed in Te Tai Tokerau, and that is a huge achievement for us. We are apparently—hopefully, fingers crossed, continue to do the mahi—going to be 90 percent first dose by the end of December. We only need another 5,500 more. So to anybody in Tai Tokerau listening today, please be one of those 5,500.

I’m really proud and pleased to know that 93 percent of our Pasifika community are single vaxxed so far and 80 percent of Māori. But Delta is here now, and our strategy has had to change. And as the virus adapts, so too must we adapt, and we are doing that. We’re doing that by safely reopening, by moving to the COVID-19 Protection Framework, otherwise known as the traffic light system. And being in Northland, there is some concern in our community. We do have the lowest vaccination rate in the country, and we have many small, vulnerable communities.

I was reminded of this just last week during recess when we had the first COVID cases self-isolating in the small community where Dr Shane Reti and I come from. It was difficult for the community. This was a first for us. We had to respond. We had no notice, no warning, but I’m proud of how our community came together to yet again come up with a strategy and a plan to protect one another. What they did was within the same day we had pop-up testing in this small community, and the people turned up to get tested. By the end of that week, we had a vaccination bus returning to vaccinate in our community where there were a number who hadn’t yet been vaccinated. We also wrapped awhi and support around that whānau who is self-isolating, and so far we have not had any further spread. So it is a real risk and a real challenge for us in Te Tai Tokerau, and I just want to acknowledge again the hard mahi that everybody is doing to ensure that we continue to save lives and livelihoods.

I do want to use the last 30 seconds to talk about one other highlight from my recess, and that was selecting my youth MP. I am proud to announce my youth MP is miss Tyissa Hape, who comes from Bay of Islands College—my former high school. I’m really proud in being able to select her. I look forward to her getting an opportunity to participate in the Youth Parliament programme. She is looking forward to that opportunity. It also coincides with her final year at Bay of Islands College. Her kaupapa is around kapa haka and how it supports mental health and wellbeing and is also good and transformational. Nō reira e te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe.

New Zealanders are sick of hearing about how good they’ve got it from a Government who talks the talk but cannot walk the walk. Instead of indulging in self-congratulations about how good their COVID response has been, instead of back-slapping each other over their latest announcement and getting sucked in by their own spin, Ministers and members opposite need to understand what it is really like for struggling Kiwis right now.

I want the members opposite to think about the Aucklanders who have spent more than 100 days in lockdown. Many still don’t have their kids back at school full-time, and to learn today that the Director-General of Health said they could’ve been out of those restrictions. I want members opposite to think of those who are in Auckland and still can’t leave for a funeral or a wedding of a loved one. I want members opposite to think about the businesses who are continuing to struggle under restrictions with no certainty about when those restrictions will end. And when they’ve done thinking about that, I want members opposite to think about what it’s like for Kiwis when the cost of living is outstripping wage growth 2:1. How does that feel at the supermarket each week and at the petrol pump each fortnight? I want members opposite to think about what it feels like when rents go up $90 a week under Labour—that makes it tough—and when house prices go up $170,000 on average a year. How does it feel to be someone who wants to buy their own first home in this country? It feels like it’s impossible under Labour to climb that mountain.

When members opposite talk about how they’ve done a great job, I want to remind them of this: they took $50 billion of New Zealanders’ hard-earned cash and they said they’d spend it on COVID recovery. So did they spend it on a single extra ICU bed in our hospitals? No, they didn’t. Instead, they spent it on a private Green School in the Taranaki, and $27 million for wallaby control. Members opposite need to remember that that is not their money they are spending. That money belongs to hard-working New Zealanders.

All of that is pretty bad—the Government’s not getting the basics right, so you ask yourself, “But are they doing what they promised they would do when they were elected?” And this is where the failures are writ so large. Let’s talk about housing. Let’s talk about the hundred thousand KiwiBuild homes that were promised. How many have been built today? It is a disgrace—the number is 1,230. There should have been 20,000 by now. What a disgrace. There are now 19,000 more people on the State house waiting list. That’s the homelessness that the Prime Minister said she was going to solve—19,000 more people waiting for a house.

The Prime Minister said that the real reason she was in politics was because she was concerned about child poverty. Well, I’m concerned about the cycle of dependence that this so-called kind Government is entrenching, where there are 70,000 more people on a job seeker benefit during a time of high employment. Do you know what the real result of that is? The real result of that is more children growing up in benefit-dependent households, dependent on the State, growing up assigned to material hardship. Thousands more children in those benefit-dependent homes, and there are 5,000 families raising their children in motel rooms—this under the administration that said it was here to solve child poverty.

They also said they were here to solve the climate change emergency, didn’t they? Well, since they made that declaration, guess how many tonnes of coal they’ve imported into this country: 931,000 tonnes of coal. It’s a record—and that’s their response to the climate change emergency.

What we have opposite us is a Government who have announced announcement after announcement. They have spoken from the podium of truth but have not delivered for the people they are here to serve. We’re National, we’re back, and we’re going to make sure that Kiwis get a much better deal come 2023.

Fa‘afetai lava mo le avanoa lau afioga le fofoga fetalai. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this general debate securing our recovery. Just like member Willow-Jean Prime, I would like to also say: manuia le Kerisimasi ma le tausaga fou. Have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all our colleagues in the House.

I want to use this time to also highlight the wonderful and tremendous work that’s been done on the ground at our vaccination stations, but also our testing stations, managed isolation and quarantine, and also now with the workforce with the community again being cared for in isolation. I also want to highlight the milestones that have been recently achieved, with the 85 percent of eligible Māori and 92 percent of eligible Pasifika having received their first dose as well.

Specifically where I’m from, South Auckland, Counties Manukau are at 93 percent of first doses and 89 percent of second doses. So we’re almost there, so just a plug for our whānau in Counties Manukau to please come forward to get your first, second, or your booster shots done this week. There are plenty of places to do so. Also, across the motu as well, there are more than 3.7 million people who are fully vaccinated, and that’s 88 percent of the eligible population as well.

The wonderful work of not only my colleagues out in the workforce but also the social providers, the youth groups, the churches, the temples that have really done the hard mahi, the hard work, in order to increase our rates across Aotearoa, but especially where I’m from in South Auckland. One of them being South Seas Healthcare’s le afioga ia Lemalu Silao, the CEO there, and their crew working tirelessly in Ōtara, with the vaccination centre there at the Manukau Institute of Technology, alongside the testing centre that’s next door to the vaccination centre. Also, the Whānau Ora food parcels that are used as well, because it’s not only the priority of getting the vaccination; it’s also the social wraparound service that’s needed.

Our Bubblegum crew, the youth initiative that go and engage with our youth—they’ve done a tremendous job as well, so I send my aroha to them.

Baderdrive Doctors, who are based in Manurewa, Māngere, who also get around and look after our Pasifika whānau, families. The many Pacific-centred - targeted vaccination stations that they’ve been helping out—I also want to say thank you to them.

Our local Takanini vaccination centre—a big shout-out to George and Raewyn and the crew there, on Saturday, on the Super Saturday event. Just this past Saturday as well I went and got my booster shot, and I want to say thank you for their work. They provide buses that can help our whānau get to the vaccination centre in the first place, so I thank them for their mahi.

Our local marae that surround Takanini as well—Manurewa and Papakura marae, the tremendous work that they do in reaching out to our whānau has been tremendous. During the lockdown, I had the opportunity to volunteer alongside our medical crew from those marae—Manurewa Marae—and doing the mahi next to them has been a privilege, not only to get our vaccination rates up but also to have that sort of relationship-building with our clinical staff there.

Our vaccination buses that go out—our Shot Cuz bus, that goes out to Randwick Park.

💬 Hon Member: Yay, Randwick Park!

One of the areas—yeah, that’s right; Randwick Park. Thank you to the Minister, as part of that community, the Manurewa community, the amount of work that they do in order to supply that. I know our Shot Cuz bus was recently at Alfriston College and engaging our youth there. So I’d like to say thank you to them as well.

Also to our Pacific workforce and our clinical nurses that do the work there as well. I want to do a shout-out to my colleagues from our Pacific peer group that not only are doing business as usual in the clinics but are out there doing the testing and the vaccination but also the online MIQ work that they do to look after—once you do get a positive, to make sure that our whānau are being well looked after and being able to speak your own language; that’s been really good in terms of engagement.

Also, lastly, our Takanini Sikh temple in reaching our ethnic community, our Sikh community, the amount of work they do—it’s almost like every week they do a food drive in order to support our community and also the vaccine uptake there. So that’s why this Government has done so well in this pandemic. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

You know, it’s been a relatively amusing debate, I have to say. Grant Robertson gave a good speech; Chris Luxon’s was better, I have to say. But I would reflect on this: while Grant Robertson is over there sitting in “comfy class”, I think over the next year or two he’s going to start getting very, very uncomfortable as interest rates and inflation start prodding him in that seat, and he starts actually hearing about the real pain that New Zealanders are going under.

He’s also going to be grumpy, and I’ll tell you why. That’s because under Chris Luxon’s fresh, clear, resolute leadership, we’re going to be resolutely focused on the economy and what matters to New Zealanders. Because we know, on this side, we’re not complacent. We’re not patting ourselves on the back while wage growth is 2.5 percent but inflation is 5 percent, sending New Zealanders backwards. No. We understand what it takes and what you need to have a strong economy in this country.

This austerity nonsense scare tactics from the finance Minister is just that: it’s nonsense. We understand the importance of health, of education, of police. I’m delighted to be finance spokesperson for Christopher Luxon’s refreshed New Zealand National Party. I know the value of health and education. I said in my maiden speech they are the meal tickets. They were the meal tickets for me; I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have had an education if it wasn’t for the public system in this country. I want to acknowledge what an amazing job Starship Hospital has done for my son Harry in the last week or so.

We get it. But the problem is while $70-odd billion is being pumped like steroids into this country by Grant Robertson—it may have been OK at the start, may have had some COVID purposes at the start—right now it’s at the point of ridiculous. Right now it’s at the point of Grant Robertson over-cooking the Christmas turkey that is our economy. It’s a burnt bird, actually, is what we’ve got right now. He is turning up the heat on that bird, and poor old Adrian Orr. I haven’t always been particularly kind about Adrian Orr. Poor old Adrian Orr—he’s vigorously trying to turn it down. You know, we’ve got fiscal and monetary policy going at each other because of the reckless, wasteful spending by Grant Robertson that’s coming to fruition in this country right now—wasteful spending, which is leading, not entirely but in large part, to a good degree of inflation in this country, making New Zealanders poorer and interest rate rises that Adrian Orr actually has to do because Grant Robertson’s doing what he’s doing. It’s fiscal and monetary working against each other.

I actually feel sorry for Adrian Orr, given where we’re at on these things. And if you don’t believe me, look, the ANZ just today has said how overheated the New Zealand economy is and the spending from Grant Robertson is just going to make inflation worse and make the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) do much more work than it needs to do. The RBNZ have said that “The economy is working above its current potential.” Well, you wouldn’t want that on a school report, would you—“above its current potential”. I wouldn’t have thought so, but that’s what they say.

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: I would. I’d want that.

Inflation four point—well, the member opposite is at above her current potential, but we won’t go there; that’s just cruel. Inflation 4.9 percent, wage growth 2.4 percent. That means New Zealanders right now under Grant Robertson and Jacinda Ardern are doing it tough. Look, forget the Christmas turkey. Actually, as I asked him today, fruit and vegetables are up 9 percent this year, right? That will bite at Christmas. Petrol’s up, I think I heard Chris Luxon say, $90 a week; housing 30 percent.

These are the components that with wage growth not nearly as high as it needs to be to combat that fuelling, that injection of fiscal steroids that Grant Robertson’s overdoing, that burning of the turkey is making things worse, that fuelling of Government spending. And of course, it’s not just inflation, I made the point, but it’s the interest rates that are going to rise and rise and rise given what Grant Robertson is doing. That is hundreds of dollars a month for many New Zealanders, for those Aucklanders. Not just Aucklanders; people in Tauranga, people in Wellington, people actually all over New Zealand now with hundreds of thousands of dollars of mortgage.

New Zealand needs Chris Luxon’s National Party so we’ve got a more productive country that invests not wastes and that’s going to deal with inflation and interest rates and get them under control.

It’s a real pleasure to stand and take a call in the last general debate of the year. I want to acknowledge, first and foremost, and congratulate the new leader and deputy leader of the Opposition. I’m also very much looking forward to the members Simon Bridges and Todd Muller turning up to a meeting together.

I would like to acknowledge what a hard year it has been for many this year. Each and every person in this country has struggled in their own way, and we’ve all worked hard to battle Delta. It hasn’t been easy for any of us, and I want to acknowledge the leadership of Jacinda Ardern for holding the ship steady at a very difficult time; in fact, it’s been frightening at times. It’s been a difficult time for us all and none of us here underestimate the cost of Delta in our community. I want to thank each and every person who has committed to making a change for the better, to getting vaccinated, and to working hard with us all just to try and solve this issue. Ninety percent of our eligible population has been fully vaccinated. This means that we can look forward to a good summer. We have the lowest number of cases, hospitalisations, and deaths per capita in the OECD, which does not deny the fact of how difficult it has been for us all here.

I wanted to just share with you all, very quickly, a wee hack around vaccination passes. I am saying this because I am not an iPhone user; I’m an Android phone user and I have had a little bit of difficulty finding the folder on my phone. So one of the things that I can recommend and suggest to you all is to take a photo of your vaccination and put it on your wallpaper on your phone. It is the easiest way, and I have this week used my vaccination pass a number of times and it works perfectly. So, a recommendation—unlike the Prime Minister who suggests putting it at the back of her phone, I suggest putting it on your wallpaper. It’s a helpful hack from me.

As a Zontian, as a feminist, and as a staunch advocate for the elimination of gender-based violence, I have to acknowledge the launch of Te Aorerekura. This is our first National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence. I want to acknowledge the Minister, the Hon Marama Davidson, for her work, but I also want to acknowledge Jan Logie for her work in this area, and I want to acknowledge everyone in the House today who is wearing orange. So we are all wearing orange in the House today—including yourself, Mr Speaker, thank you, we acknowledge and appreciate that—around the Orange the World campaign. The Joint Venture for Family Violence and Sexual Violence has done some outstanding work on Te Aorerekura. We have a 25-year strategy around family violence and a two-year plan around some of those solutions. I’m really looking forward to seeing this roll-out.

As we head towards Christmas—traditionally a very busy and difficult time for family violence services and family violence in this country—I would like to ask each and every member here in the House, and those listening, to be part of the solution to end gender-based violence against women and children. I want us to speak up and I want us to speak out when you hear or see violence. To do this is the best Christmas gift that you could give anyone in your family. I want to acknowledge the work, the hard work that will happen over the Christmas period with the families, with the services who will be working 24/7 to keep families safe. Mr Speaker, Merry Christmas. I wish you the best.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was a perfect lead-in from my colleague Angie Warren-Clark because I want to stand, in this time, to acknowledge that yesterday was a big day for the work to eliminate family violence and sexual violence for so many, over so long—many, many decades—who have been attempting to do this work for so long. The strategy Te Aorerekura that we launched yesterday is a start of a 25-year plan that we have never had before. Successive Governments, decades and decades of lesser attempts, have failed to reach the vision that I know we all want, which is for everyone to be able to live in their homes and communities in peace and free of violence, to be able to put your hand up when you need help and expect to be believed, to be respected, and to be given the support you need when you need it and for however long you need it. And this strategy is doing things differently because we need to.

I am so proud, as the first Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence, to have been able to lead and launch the strategy that was the culmination of the work of so many, including my ministerial colleagues and our MPs, like the member Angie Warren-Clark, who have long-held work, insight, and experience in this work. And there are so many others—the work that was led out by my colleague under-secretary Jan Logie last term, and the sector, the experts, tangata whenua, and community, our agencies working together. That is something that we have never seen before in the work to address family violence. And, yes, this is the start line, but it is a start line that we have never had. I am so proud and pleased because this strategy was created by the sector, by community, with tangata whenua, with our agencies, and so I am proud of the feedback and the hope that it has given to people, to the sector, to ordinary people for their lives and how it is going to improve.

We have not ever had a coordinated approach to eliminating family violence and sexual violence. We have not had leadership and accountability that is clear and collective across our agencies. We have made accountability for our systems to make sure that they do not re-traumatise and cause further harm for victims and survivors. We have put that line in the sand very clear in Te Aorerekura.

I want to also emphasise that, for the first time, we are focusing on one of the big shifts, which includes a prevention focus and a healing and restoration focus. For far too long, we have had a workforce that does not understand trauma-informed approaches, and that is across the board, whether it’s education, health, police, Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry of Social Development. All across the board, and in our community and sector, the people were very clear: we must have more trauma-informed approaches, more focus on preventing harm from happening in the first place, and people to be able to help everyone on their journey of healing and restoration.

This strategy also makes it clear that we need to provide support for people who use harm, have used harm, or are having thoughts or inclinations to using harm. People will see, in this strategy, very clearly that people who have attitudes or inclination to use harm want help to stop, want help to not go there, want help to understand where their attitudes and behaviours are coming from, and that requires us to move away from an adversarial approach to justice, because we want people to understand that they can put their hand up without shame and stigmatisation, so that they can stop using and causing harm.

The strategy Te Aorerekura also comes with an action plan of 40 actions. It is not just a strategy, because we also acknowledge that there are service gaps. There have been service gaps for decades. We have not properly served ethnic people, Māori women, Pasifika people, rainbow people, disabled people, trans people, older people. We have not served many well. So I am proud of Te Aorerekura. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.