General Debate

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

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. I have to say there was an air of excitement in the Beehive this week—an air of excitement—and the reason was very simple: the Prime Minister was in her office and she was gazing at her calendar, thinking, “How many more days have I got before I get to leave the country and go travelling again?” While she was doing that, someone just burst through the door. It was Megan Woods bursting through the door, shouting and yelling, “I’ve found it, I’ve found it, I’ve found it! The solution to our Gib crisis!” And she said, “I’ll set up a task force!” But not just your run of the mill, normal task force; this is going to be a high-level, high-power task force! I have to say such is the urgency and such are the big ideas coming from this Labour Government that I thought Luke Malpass expressed it so eloquently yesterday, when he said, “The Government did what everyone screaming out for plasterboard to finish their house or renovation was asking for: another task force.”

Now, I know they’re really bad, but you really can’t start making this stuff up. It’s like the political version of The Office that we’re watching at the moment. I have to say that no New Zealand Government before Jacinda Ardern’s Government has spent so much and achieved so very little. No Government has spent so much on spending and delivered so little on outcomes, and I think it’s almost an achievement in itself. It’s kind of a Wellington miracle! How do you spend more money, more bureaucrats, and deliver worse outcomes? It’s a unique skill! It’s a very unique skill that they’ve perfected very well. What I can tell you is that, when National was last on that side of the House, in Government, we were spending less money each Budget than that Government is spending and we were getting much better outcomes.

Now, I thought, just to remind the back benchers of the Labour Party, it would be quite good to show them what a good Government looked like. Because what did we deliver? We delivered shorter hospital waiting lists. We delivered shorter emergency department wait times. There was a shorter social housing wait list, as well. There were shorter cancer wait times. There were actually more children attending school. We didn’t spend $5 billion, hire 1,400 more bureaucrats, and get worse attendance and worse academic achievement. I seriously hope Minister Hipkins is going to bring something different to Police. We had more kids actually passing NCEA level 2 at the same time. We had fewer Māori children leaving school without a qualification. We had lower gang numbers. We had less violent crime. We had fewer people on jobseeker benefits for longer than a year. We had lower inflation. We had lower interest rates. We had far higher levels of consumer confidence. We even had lower coal imports and an average national house that was $360,000 lower than it is now. We certainly had more competent Cabinet Ministers, and the New Zealand Transport Agency had half the staff that it has today and it managed to build more roads. Motels weren’t a permanent address, and you didn’t have to go on a waiting list at Mitre 10 to buy a piece of Gib board! I’m looking across the Chamber, which has emptied out very quickly, and I just want to say to the Labour back bench that I know they just wish they had a Government half as competent as that one.

The inability of this Government to deliver anything, I have to say, is quite staggering. They simply do not know how to get things done. They confuse spending announcements with outcomes, and in the middle sits delivery, implementation, execution, getting it done. Their answer to the Gib shortage: another ministerial task force. Their answer to the ram raids going through the roof: strobe lights and fog cannons and Chris Hipkins. Their answer to the cost of living crisis: a temporary band-aid that certainly won’t help the squeezed middle. It’s like putting a band-aid on open-heart surgery. Their answer to a skyrocketing State housing wait list: only a thousand KiwiBuild homes built in this last four years. Their answer to exploding gang violence: well, the police Minister is going to have a chat to the justice Minister, and maybe they’ll work it out. This Government, I have to say, couldn’t deliver its way out of a paper bag, and after five years, I have to say, it is so sad. It is so sad to actually see a Government literally making it up on the fly, putting band-aid solutions together, confusing spending announcements with outcomes, but I have to tell you that Kiwis up and down the country don’t have to wait long, because a National Government is just round the corner.

We’re the ultimate task force you need, and a National Government that actually knows how to get things done, that knows the difference between spin and achievement and delivery, and a National Government that will get things done for New Zealand and create a society where Kiwis can get along and they can get ahead. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

In my time in Parliament, I’ve heard some truly incredible speeches from a Leader of the Opposition. I regret to tell the member that that was not one of them. If I was him, I’d get someone more creative to write my speeches for me, because Christopher stick-to-the-script Luxon still has a wee way to go if he wants to capture the hearts and minds of New Zealanders and particularly the hearts and minds of his own caucus. It’s no surprise, after listening to that speech, that Christopher Luxon said he’s going overseas to gather some ideas, because it’s clear that his own party doesn’t have any, because not one new idea was put forward in that five-minute contribution from the leader of the National Party.

But he wants to talk about results, so I’ll take up that challenge. Let’s talk about results delivered by this Government. We could talk about the two world-leading triple A credit ratings, something few countries have been able to achieve, which has been achieved under this Government. We could talk about the fact that GDP is up by 5.6 percent compared to two years ago. Economic growth under this Government, which, actually, at various points has outstripped what was being achieved under the last Government, despite the fact that we’ve had COVID-19 to deal with, which has been the largest economic shock I think the world has faced in a very long time. Record low unemployment at 3.2 percent.

You want to talk about results? We’ve got more Kiwis into jobs and fewer people out of work than ever before. That is a result that we are proud of on this side of the House. We could talk about the fact that up until this year, wage growth has outpaced inflation. I acknowledge that there is a challenge with inflation around the world at the moment, and let’s put that into context. Across the OECD, up until April, the average OECD rate of inflation was 9.2 percent, and inflation in New Zealand was 6.9 percent. It was lower than the OECD average, lower than many of the countries we trade with, lower than countries we compare ourselves with, like the UK at 8.3 percent, the UK at 7.8 percent, Germany at 7.4 percent—the list could go on. Inflation is an international phenomenon, and it is putting pressure on households, and that is why we are taking action on that front as well.

I could talk about the cost of living payment announced in this year’s Budget that delivered for 2.1 million New Zealanders; the work that we’ve taken to reduce the cost of fuel by cutting fuel taxes; half-price public transport; increased minimum wages; the winter energy payment. And, yes, we are going to take action on the duopoly of our supermarkets, because New Zealanders are paying far too much at the supermarket because there has been a lack of competition and it is time that we did more to address that, and that’s exactly what we are going to do.

We’ve boosted financial support for New Zealanders—boosting student allowances, boosting superannuation, and, yes, boosting benefits because we realise that there are people living on benefits at the moment who have aspirations; they’ve got goals for the future as well. And unlike the members opposite, we don’t refer to them as—and I’ll quote from this because I think it’s a quote that’s worth reminding New Zealanders about: “we don’t just do bottom-feeding and just focus on the bottom … we focus on people who want to be positive and ambitious, aspirational and confident”. Right? That was from the Leader of the Opposition. I say to him, go and have conversations with people who are working on the minimum wage, go and have conversations with people who are living on a benefit, and you will find people who are positive and aspirational and who want to get ahead and who want a better life for their kids and a better future for their country, and they are committed to working for that.

I say to the National Party: why don’t they back those Kiwis? What is it about them that they so resent? What is it about them that says that the National Party thinks that they should get a cup of coffee a week in tax cuts when those on the highest incomes should be getting thousands and thousands of dollars a week in tax cuts? What is it about the National Party? What is it that they have against those people who are toiling and working hard and doing the vital jobs that we need here in New Zealand to keep our economy moving and to keep the many other New Zealanders in the style of life to which they have been accustomed—what is it that the National Party has against those people? I say that we should be celebrating those workers.

Remember during COVID-19, when people were out in the streets applauding the people who were going to work in the supermarkets? Today, they are more likely to be the subject of abuse. I think we need to recapture that spirit that says we will recognise and value those New Zealanders who are getting out there and doing the hard work every day. They deserve more than a cup of coffee, and the cup of coffee they’re being offered so that other people can have thousands of dollars a week in tax cuts just isn’t right.

Well, if there was ever a speech that completely missed the mark and was completely out of touch, that was it from Chris Hipkins. He’s talking about economic indicators and OECD averages and inflation and unemployment when people out there don’t want to hear that, because they are deciding whether or not they can afford to buy a meal for dinner tonight or a raincoat for their kid, or some shoes, or fill up the car with gas. That’s what they’re thinking about. They’re not worried about OECD averages, Mr Hipkins, and I’ll tell you what else they’re worried about. They’re worried about whether or not they turn up at the emergency department waiting area and whether or not they’ll be seen or whether or not they’ll be turned away to die, as it turns out.

Last week, there was a question from a poor mother whose baby had died in utero—she had to wait 48 hours to give birth to her stillborn baby. That’s what people are worried about at the moment, because of our crumbling health system, because of a Government that cannot prioritise getting nurses into the country, and no one on that side of the House can tell us why we are not prioritising nurses on the fast track to residence. All the Prime Minister could do today was to say that they are on the fast track to residence. Well, here is some information for the Prime Minister.

There is a green list that this Government has created. There is a fast track. There is a work to residence, two-year track. The nurses are not on the fast track. It doesn’t matter how many times she says it, they’re not on it. But I will tell you who is on that fast track. If you take a look at the green list you will see a “multi-media specialist”. I will tell you what a multi-media specialist does. They create and manipulate computer games, animation, audiovisual graphic files. An alternative title is that they are a specialist electronic game developer. That’s who this Government have prioritised on the fast track, straight to residency list. They put nurses on a two-year wait for residence, and they put multi-media specialists—electronic games developers—on a fast track to residence. That is the priority of this Government. Meanwhile, we’ve got people waiting in emergency departments who are not being seen and are being sent home to die while we have game makers being allowed into the country and getting residence immediately. How is that even possible?

We are 4,000 nurses short. I don’t know how many times we have to say it on this side of the House. I said it a year ago in Opening Up, National’s plan to tackle COVID-19. I said a year ago that nurses need to be fast tracked to residence and the Government didn’t pick it up. What have they done? They’ve put them on a two-year go-slow. Why does that matter? It matters because Australia has them on a fast-track to residence immediately, so they can go to Australia, and that’s exactly where they will go. We are not putting ourselves in a competitive position around the rest of the world. We’re putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. Nurses will choose to go to Australia where they’re paid more and where they can get residence immediately. Here they’re treated like second-class citizens to multi-media specialists who make games.

Why this matters, also, is because midwives are on that slow-track list. We are 300 midwives short in this country; 24 percent of the workforce is not able to be filled right now. That—24 percent—is the highest of anyone, of doctors, of nurses, of anyone. They are on the most critical skills shortage list, yet we are putting them on a two-year wait to residence, when in Australia, again, they can go straight to residence.

So what are we doing? We’re putting mothers and babies at risk; not only people who need urgent care and turn up at the hospital—those people who need elective surgeries and are being bumped down—but mothers and babies. We are putting mothers and babies at risk. Why is it? This Government hasn’t been able to tell us why there’s a two-year wait. We’ve asked so many times. I’ve asked Chris Hipkins. We’ve asked the Prime Minister. No one has been able to tell us. Firstly they told us it was the sector bodies they talked to. Well, the Aged Care Association said, “Well, it wasn’t us.” Then they said it can’t be the DHBs because they don’t hold that information. Kris Faafoi said it wasn’t the DHBs and Andrew Little has come back saying it definitely wasn’t the DHBs either. Then they said it was the Nursing Council, and the Nursing Council came back and said, “It wasn’t us. We don’t hold that information.” The Prime Minister again today was saying it was the DHBs when we’ve had written questions back from the Minister of Health to say the DHBs don’t hold that information and haven’t provided it. No one has provided that information. The reason is because it’s not true—migrant nurses do not turn up in New Zealand after years of qualifications, experience, and after paying $10,000 for a clinical nursing competence course, get into nursing, get their residence, and then say, “Hey, I think I’ll go and start a restaurant.” They don’t do that and there’s no evidence of it, so why are they still sticking to their guns? They need to just admit they made a mistake and fix it because lives are at risk.

I’m delighted to actually take a call in this debate here this afternoon, and it’s wonderful to be back in the House full time and not have other things that are taking my focus away from that. But I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate the new member of Parliament from Tauranga, Sam Uffindell, on his result at the weekend. It was a wonderful contest, and I’m now pleased to put that behind me.

I’d like to focus on how we’re securing the future of our young people through education. This Government has laid the foundations for rangatahi to be successful through the investments we have made in quality education, employment, and training, but one of the investments that I’m really close to is the work that we have done in the development of the Government’s attendance and engagement strategy. There was a debate that happened in the House here on 2 June around that, but unfortunately I was on COVID leave at the time. So I’d like to make a few comments about that now and about the strategy that we have introduced as a Government in the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the work of the Education and Workforce Committee and the members of that select committee in their inquiry into school attendance. The eight key themes that were identified through the inquiry are consistent with the work of the Government that we have been doing over the last four years to turn around the long-term decline in school attendance rates. Attendance rates did start to decline in 2015, and two years of battling a global pandemic with COVID-19 had an even bigger impact. For those of us who have worked in the education sector, we know that the solution to this longer-term attendance challenge is not just marking kids present on the roll. Getting our kids through the door is only part of the challenge and only part of the priority for this Government. It’s the first step.

We have to meaningfully engage our young people in education, and their curriculum that they are learning needs to be meaningful. That is why we are taking a targeted-based approach to attendance, with the communities who know their kids best, and that approach needs to look close and be close to those communities that those young people come from. That is why we are putting the largest-ever investment into developing a world-class curriculum that is meaningful and engaging for those young people and has them at the centre of everything that they do. That is why we have a strong focus on wellbeing, culture, and inclusion in our education policy.

As the select committee report highlights, there are compounding issues that sit outside of the education system that contribute to non-attendance, such as poverty, family violence, mental health challenges, and transport issues. That is why the Government is tackling these head on through cross-agency work programmes that support families in difficult times and make lasting changes to reduce inequity. In the last few years, we have explored more effective ways of getting resourcing to school communities. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, we had the Urgent Response Fund that put $50 million into our schools to address the needs that they were facing straight away. But we knew that this fund was addressing the pandemic right at its height. We knew that a longer-term solution needed to be put in place, which is why we introduced our strategy around attendance and engagement last week and set really challenging targets that will bring us back to—

💬 David Seymour: 16 percent?

Just listen to this. It will bring us back to a level higher than that that the National Government had back in 2015—higher. A very, very ambitious programme of work that we have set in place for ourselves, but not one that is impossible to reach, one that is too important for our young people to get wrong, one that will see our young people back in front of their schooling, and one that those of us that have been in education know only too well is critically important.

The Government is laying the foundations for lifelong engagement and participation in learning through tailoring solutions to communities and reducing the barriers that prevent kids from getting the education they deserve. This Government will face the challenge of school attendance head on, and we will turn this ship around. This Government is committed to doing things better for our tamariki and for the future of this country.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m sure a man of your vintage frequently listens to the tunes of Jay-Z, and you’ll be aware of the song 99 Problems! It seems relevant to this Government. They’ve got more than 99 problems, but what they don’t have is 99 problem solvers. They don’t have a practical approach to addressing the issues that New Zealanders are confronting day by day.

Let’s start with what’s happening in the hospitals, in the GP clinics, in the care homes up and down this country—4,000 nurses short. And what do we hear from the Government? We don’t know. There’s a fast track, but the Prime Minister can’t tell us how many people are on the fast track to immigrate into New Zealand. What would a Government that took a practical approach to addressing urgent problems do about the shortage of nurses? Well, first of all, they’d make the immigration fast track genuine. They would make it as competitive, if not more competitive, than what Australia offers, but they can’t. And the reason is they don’t understand that the world’s changed. It’s not a case of being able to pick and choose people wanting to come here. We’re in a war for talent where we need to attract people. Australia gets it. Canada gets it. They rolled out the red carpet as soon as COVID was over and they moved on and took people in. New Zealand has a Government that campaigned on reducing immigration to only 10,000. That’s why they’re so confused. That’s why they say they’re fast tracking nurses, but they can’t say how many.

Here’s another thing you could do if you had a practical approach to the problem of a nursing shortage. Well, you could say: we stood down 518 due to mandates in November. You know what? We’re not mandating the flu vaccine. Half of the medical profession hasn’t had that and there’s more flu in the hospitals than COVID today. So why do we lose 500 nurses in the middle of a shortage due to a lack of COVID vaccines? That is illogical. That is insanity. We should dump those mandates and get as many of those 518 stood down in November back in the hospital now.

Here’s the other thing that people that work in hospitals tell me. Our isolation rules are unworkable. The Prime Minister found this herself. Her partner got COVID—a week in isolation. Then she got it and had another week. That is happening in families across New Zealand. Every principal of every school is suffering at losing a teacher for two weeks because of a few days of infectiousness. That’s what’s happening in the hospitals. They’re losing their nurses. We should do what Singapore does and say you’ve got 72 hours stand-down; out with a negative test. We should dump the household requirement, just as Australia, for example, has so that people can get back to work. That’s just one of the 99-plus problems that we could solve if we took a practical approach to the shortage of nurses.

Then you’ve got the extraordinary circumstance of an industrialised First World Western nation that is falling over itself for a shortage of plasterboard. You can’t make this stuff up. It is literally a sandwich of cardboard and plaster of Paris and you can’t get it for love nor money in New Zealand. And what’s this Government done? Well, they’re going to appoint another working group. They’re actually going to have a ministerial task force. Let me make a prediction. This task force will soak up the time until Fletcher’s new factory comes on stream, and then when Fletcher’s back on stream, we’ll forget about the task force: business as usual. Man, you’ve got to admire Fletcher’s lobbying and the outcomes that they get. Wow. But that’s what’s going to happen.

A Government that was committed to practical problem solving would do what ACT proposed just yesterday. We would say, “MBIE, you need to create a materials equivalence register.” And on that register are materials that are equivalent to plasterboard from around the world. You can get applicants within New Zealand who can ask to be put on them and, if other countries already have materials registered, then the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment should proactively seek them out and put them on the register. If we can’t do that, why did we just hire an extra 14,000 fulltime-equivalents in the Public Service over five years? What are all these people doing if they can’t solve a problem as simple and straightforward as that?

That would then be followed by solutions on crime. I wish we had more time to give those, but let me finish with one that is salient to New Zealand’s long-term future. The world is changing. The Chinese Communist Party, who are a totalitarian dictatorship, are building their influence right against New Zealand’s area of interest. What a practical foreign affairs Minister would do is take those Kiwis of Pacific origin in business, the arts, and sport—take them on a road show of the Pacific and say, “We’re back, folks. We’re your friends, we’re here to help, and be careful of those people offering you money.” That’s what they could do. But what’s our Minister of Foreign Affairs done? Three waters and the co-governance of everything! Forced on New Zealanders. What a shame.

Mānawa mai e te putanga o Matariki. Mānawa mai e Te Ariki o Te Rangi. Mānawa mai e te Mātahi o te tau. Mr Speaker, Mānawatia a Matariki.

[Celebrate the appearance of Matariki. Welcome the lord of the sky. Celebrate the beginning of the New Year. Mr Speaker, happy Māori New Year.]

I am so stoked to be on this side of the House this week. Right now, as we are looking up and down Aotearoa, we’ve got young kids learning about Matariki. They’re learning about our connections to our relations all throughout the Pacific right now who have been celebrating this time, mai rā anō [for ever].

We just heard my friend—what’s his name? Mr Seymour—lament on the relationships between Aotearoa, our Government, and our Pacific Island relations, our brothers and our sisters. You only need to look on this side of the House to understand the depth of relationship that we put into these relationships—at a Government level, an interpersonal, and real genuine relationship level. These types of hononga that we are creating through Matariki, they are symbolic of the fact that we voyaged through this region together. We share similar atua. We share similar beliefs and spiritual symbolism that connects us, more so than just forms on the paper—of which, though, those things are important. But as I look up and down Aotearoa right now, I see kids learning about each of our stars. I don’t know about you, but this is a time for us to reflect, it’s a time to connect, and it’s a time to cast our aspirations forward.

So very briefly, I just want to start with a bit of a reflection. She’s been a bit of a tough year, eh, across the board. I don’t know about you all, but I found myself locked up in my house with a couple of kids, and it was challenging. It was tougher than being in this House, I tell you. But this is the situation that all New Zealanders have found ourselves in. We’ve been in periods of isolation. We’ve had disruptions through our workplaces. The way that we’ve connected with each other has found ourselves in this incredible upheaval. But, too, we found some shining stars throughout our communities. I’m thinking of Reweti Ropiha, who is our CEO of Turanga Health, who led us steadfastly in Gisborne to assist with our care and community and COVID response. I’m thinking of the Tina Ngatas and Ani Pahuru-Huriwais up the top of the East Coast who have religiously been wearing their masks. They kept to a state where COVID didn’t permeate throughout the communities, with the support of, of course, our Government, but it was our people on the ground that were leading the charge. Linda Coulston, SuperGrans; they were out there cooking every single day for people that were disrupted in our community. It’s those people that I think about when I think about this last year.

But we’ve lost some incredible chiefs. We’ve lost some incredible dames. Moana Jackson, for his work that he did in the criminal justice system. Tā Wira Gardiner, a consummate statesperson and head of Oranga Tamariki. I think about Joe Hawke, a bastion for our people who led land rights movements and forced us to think about our connection to whenua. Dame June Jackson, the Hon Willie Jackson’s mother, who has been remarkable in urban spaces. But I think of two in particular, for myself: my colleague, my friend, and, of course, my mentor, Sir Michael Cullen—within our community, this week we will be planting a tree to commemorate his contribution to Aotearoa, and, of course, to us—and just last week, my cousin Maia Kuka, 38 years old, who was taken from us and her four children, far too young. We remember her.

When we think about where we are right now, our kids are growing up in a state of maturation, really different than what we grew up in. They’re learning about their connection to this place. They’re learning about their connection to each other. They’re learning to lean into mātauranga—that will form their identity. This is an exciting time for all of us. As I cast my mind forward to the future, those kids that are learning their connections to each other, they will be our leaders of tomorrow. Right now, they are singing songs that will teach them the names of the stars: Waitī, Waitā, Waipunarangi, Tupuānuku, Tupuārangi, ko Ururangi, Pōhutukawa, ko Hiwa-i-te-rangi, ngā whetū o Matariki.

Tomorrow they will be our leaders, with this mātauranga entrenched into their beings, and I cannot wait for the day that they take our seats in this House, because where they go, our future is fire.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and what a pleasure to follow my friend and fellow Auckland Girls’ Grammar School (AGGS) girl, the Hon Kiri Allan, the new Minister of Justice, especially because today I would like to speak about democracy and the work that we will do together to strengthen New Zealand’s democracy.

We here in Aotearoa have a lot of be proud of with our democracy: we were the first nation to give women the vote; we have a mixed-member proportional Parliament that is diverse and truly representative of the vote out there. But, for decades, Governments and politicians have failed to make the type of electoral changes that we know we need for a truly modern, strong, inclusive, and equal democracy. They’ve known what these changes were that we needed, because independent institutions like our Electoral Commission, our Justice Committee, our Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the Waitangi Tribunal, and the public, after round and round of consultation, have told them. These are the types of changes that are reflected in my Greens’ Electoral (Strengthening Democracy) Amendment Bill. It’s about taking party politics out of electoral reform and listening to the public, to the experts, and to the independent bodies without the stake that we have as politicians in maintaining the status quo.

Communities around New Zealand are locked out of our democracy right now because of arbitrary rules that we can change. Sixteen- and 17-year-olds have a right in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to vote. They can leave school, they can have sex, they can work full-time, they pay taxes, but they can’t vote. We deny them that one vote—the say in our democracy that impacts their lives for the longest—even though they’ve proven to us again and again that they are engaged and passionate about the issues that affect their lives, about the climate crisis, about mental health, about public transport.

Overseas New Zealanders can’t vote in the next general election unless they’ve been back here in the last three years. It’s been a bit hard in the last three years! It’s always hard for students, for families with small kids overseas, to get back in that tiny, arbitrary time. It’s time to change that.

People in our overcrowded prisons were disenfranchised by a bare majority Parliament under the National Party Government, and they haven’t been fully restored to that right. We know that our justice system is prejudiced. We know that it targets Māori, the poor, and people with mental health challenges the most, and then we cut them off from democracy itself. The Supreme Court and the Waitangi Tribunal have told us that that’s wrong, that that degrades human rights in Aotearoa.

But let’s talk about perhaps the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to democracy: money—secret money. There is, in New Zealand, no limit on political donations that any politician or party can receive. That’s shocking to me. That breeds the kind of American-style democracy—so-called democracy—where the highest bidder gets to influence elections and influence policy. That seems wrong. But what’s worse is that we have so few rules around transparency here in New Zealand that the public can’t know who is taking a stake in our democracy when they vote. Is it big oil stopping climate action? Is it the gun lobby? Is it property investors stopping the capital gains tax, rent controls, and rental warrants of fitness?

Earlier this week, the National Party did a U-turn on its position last term, when it said it would support electoral reform when it came to political donations. Of course, at the time, they were being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. Now they say they don’t see the point of having more transparency in political donations, and of course they would say that, because, of the $1.4 million that the National Party got from donors in 2021, 71 percent was in secret. The ACT Party received 74 percent of its donations in secret. Is it one vote per person, really? It’s time to ensure Aotearoa has the kind of fair, inclusive, and truly equal democracy that we know we deserve. So I will be working with this new Minister, this old AGGS girl, to make that real.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you for the opportunity to rise to speak on the general debate. Since last weekend, we have been celebrating World Refugee Day. In doing so, we heard a lot of stories—stories of people with amazing resilience, perseverance, and hope. We heard from a young Somali woman who came as a child from the war zone, but now she is an aspiring writer. We heard from the young Afghani woman who came from a war zone and now she is studying law and criminology. We are very proud of the work that we are doing in this space. The last two years of COVID-19 didn’t stop us from, to a certain extent, bringing former refugees from war zones; Afghanistan and the Ukraine is a good example.

With that, we’ve been hearing a lot from the Opposition. They have been talking about a lot of things that the Labour Government is doing and they are opposing everything that this Government is doing, whether that’s good or bad. So they are doing that without proposing one single solution—one single solution. No, they have one—one solution—and that’s cutting tax for wealthy New Zealanders who earn more than $180,000. People who don’t need this money, they are proposing to cut tax for them. On the other hand, minimum wage, no; free trade agreement, no; double sick leave for front-line workers, no. This speaks volumes about the Opposition.

The last two and a half weeks I’ve been on the road with my colleagues from the ethnic caucus, and we’ve been engaging with people. We’ve been talking to a lot of business owners, a lot of community leaders. We’ve been talking to a lot of people that were running NGOs as well. So they told us about how this Government is listening to them. They talked about hope. They talked about the light at the end of the tunnel, after two years of almost darkness, and they can now look forward. They can now look forward to reconnect with their families and to do business. One small-business owner told me about how he’s excited about the $100 million that Government put aside to support small businesses.

The moments that we’re living now—the optimism, the hope—are not a coincidence. It was carefully planned. It took brave and empathetic leadership. It took listening to experts. But that doesn’t mean that danger from COVID-19 is over. We will continue to support New Zealanders. We will continue to keep them safe. We will accelerate our economic recovery and rebuild from the impact of COVID-19, all this while we put in a strong foundation to address key issues such as climate change, housing affordability, and child poverty.

Visiting the Newtown Union Health Service, more than 20 percent of their patients are migrants and refugees. They told us how the numbers in patients have been increasing lately because of the half-price transport that the Government put in place. People are actually starting to turn up to their appointments. So what we’re hearing is that every decision that this Government is taking is making an impact in people’s lives, a direct impact, and the people are excited about that.

We’ve got an Opposition that’s opposing everything that we’re doing and, sadly, without proposing one single solution. That worries me—that worries me—because this Opposition, sooner or later, they’re going to be a Government. If they become a Government, then what’s going to happen to these working people? There is no plan. There is no hope. There is no aspiration to help working people. Nine years of a National Party Government, I was a cleaner, I was a hotel worker, and I was not supported. We cried for help. All we could get was 40c, 30c, 50c maximum from that Government. New Zealanders cannot afford that. On this side of the House, I am very proud of the actions that this Government is taking. We’re listening to Kiwis. We are supporting Kiwis. We’re very proud of that.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’d like to talk this afternoon directly to the professional firefighters and voluntary firefighters, who do a tremendous job on behalf of our communities across the country. This Government is completely letting you down. You have a senior team here down in Wellington—the Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ) head office—that is a disgrace. And I am hearing every day from you how frustrated and angry you are that at your time of greatest need, this Government has let you down.

When FENZ was established five years ago, the plan was to get the best out of rural, the best out of volunteers, and the best out of the professionals by supporting them strongly with what they need. What has happened instead is an incredible inflation in the revenue of FENZ, all off the back of commercial property owners, of residential property owners, of vehicle insurance. Their revenue now is $661 million. No wonder the professional firefighters are so aggrieved that they cannot sit down with this Government and negotiate better terms—$661 million. That is $200 million more than what was assumed when the merger took place for this financial year—$200 million more, all off the back of insurance levy payers of this country. The Government puts in $10 million and a little bit of capital expenditure to refresh a few fire stations, the rest of it is paid by New Zealanders.

They have a complete disregard for the performance of this organisation. In 2015, the Fire Service of New Zealand spent $4.5 million on consultants and contractors. It is now $145 million over the last five years. That’s your Government, Labour Government. Five years, $145 million of contractors. Has that found its way to the professional firefighters or to the volunteer firefighters? No, it has not. And the culture of FENZ is a complete disgrace: vulnerable, predominantly women, but not exclusively, vulnerable, harassed. We have sexual harassment and bullying. It is so bad that a retired judge did a review in 2018 and had 33 specific recommendations. FENZ has been so incompetent in actually progressing those recommendations another Queen’s Service Order has been appointed in the last couple or three months to review the lack of performance of FENZ with respect to that outcome.

They have set up a behaviour and conduct office. That’s their big thing. So they’ve set the office up—240 complaints in the last two years. It is a complete disgrace. They have absolutely no ability to manage this organisation in a way that actually benefits the volunteers and the professional firefighters. The level of incompetence wherever you look is appalling. Last weekend, for the first time I think I can ever recall, fire stations had to close in Auckland because there simply wasn’t enough staff to crew the appropriate appliances and actually be there to keep the fire station open. The Professional Firefighters Union and the volunteers had been calling for this. They could see this was going to happen—a convergence of COVID, flu, and a complete lack of investing in this sector.

💬 Hon Michael Wood: That’s right, comrade.

And they laugh and mock over there. They said, “Oh, ho, ho, good to hear you saying this, comrade.” Well, when are you going to actually stand beside the people you purport to represent? You’re full of hot air. You go up and you say all the right things at the right speeches, and you do it all nicely, but the people out there on the front line, the people that are actually driving these fire trucks today, you go and ask them what they think of this Government’s performance. They would rate you zero out of 10, because it’s just rhetoric. It’s just spin; it’s never delivery. And when they actually want someone to partner with, they want a National Government who actually can listen to them, who know how to take $661 million and get a result from it—not just spray it up against the wall, not just have process from A to Z and somehow think that’s progress. This Government is a disgrace, and the people you purport to represent know that. And they can’t wait till next November when finally they’ll get a Government that can actually get stuff done.

Mānawatia a Matariki. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to rise, and I wish to add to and highlight in this kōrero the Labour Government’s significant investment in Budget announcements 2022. I do want to begin by thanking my colleagues, led by Minister Hipkins.

On reflection, reconnecting New Zealand to the world, there have been welcome announcements made recently of travellers no longer needing a COVID pre-departure test to enter Aotearoa New Zealand. That is so important to our New Zealand borders that are being reopened, and I really look forward to a number of family and friends who will be visiting Aotearoa later this year. The COVID restrictions have meant people needed to stay home overseas. Especially to our closest neighbours, whānau in Australia, that trans-Tasman comradery-ship is really important, and we really look forward to seeing them. It’s going to be a special time reconnecting with family, whānau, and aiga, and to have those special milestones.

I make comments to highlight that the Labour Government is working very hard, providing significant investment for Kiwis, and I want to hone in on Pasifika communities and focus my comments there: the creation of economic security for now and in the future. The unemployment rate is at a low 3.2 percent against the expectation when COVID hit that there would be a percentage of something like 10 percent. But that is not true: it is 3.2 percent.

As you know, I’ve only been here for a few months. I’ve had the privilege of travelling with a number of Government Ministers to see our communities—Minister Grant Robertson, Minister Aupito William Sio, Minister Poto Williams, and Minister Carmel Sepuloni—and to talk to our Pasifika communities and communities at large about the Budget announcements 2022.

The Wellbeing Budget 2022 Pasifika package is the largest—an investment of $196 million of funding for our Aotearoa Pacific communities. We had the pleasure of visiting the communities in Ōtaki with my colleagues Terisa Ngobi and Tangi Utikere. We visited the Horowhenua Learning Centre and we heard from the facilitator, a young Pasifika woman, Tessa. In her emotional tribute in a thankyou speech, she highlighted three of their young people living in this district. Those young people have benefited from the programme of the Government’s investment to lift their economic and health wellbeing, and that is part of the Government securing our recovery.

We also visited Porirua in a post-Budget breakfast. The Hon Aupito William Sio was able to launch the first Pacific employment plan, and that plan sets out a vision with better employment opportunities, including self-employment and training priorities for our communities. A key goal is that the Pacific communities will be able to progress the aspirations and prosperity of future generations.

Just lastly, I was able, on behalf of Minister Aupito, to attend and hand out and congratulate two young Pasifika recipients of the Tupu Aotearoa programme. Both had received a Master’s scholarship and a doctorate scholarship, and that will help both of those students—one young woman from Dunedin and a young Pacific man from Auckland—to benefit their Pacific research capability and capacity in recognising identity, language, and culture.

I am very proud that the Labour Government is committed to securing our recovery in these initiatives, and I am very proud of being a member of the Labour Government. Thank you.

Mānawatia a Matariki, Mr Speaker, and it’s always a blessing to speak about the North Shore of Auckland in this wonderful House. Can I take a brief moment to acknowledge destination manager Kae Condon and the Birkenhead Town Centre Association for organising the very well-attended Birkenhead medieval fair last weekend. It’s not often that I’ll get to dress up in a tunic around in my community. The fair was supported by Minister Nash’s Reactivating Tāmaki Makaurau fund and achieved its aim of encouraging locals and visitors alike to confidently come out into our town centre, enjoy our wonderful hospitality, and visit our local retailers now that the COVID wave has peaked. It was an excellent local example of how this Government is securing our recovery from COVID-19, and today I want to speak about how some of the initiatives in Budget 2022 are giving my community better resilience to face our local challenges.

Last week, I brought together our community leaders in Beach Haven—school principals, Māori wardens, the North Shore community patrol, New Zealand Police, Kāinga Ora, church leaders, councillors, and our local board and our marae—to develop our own locally owned youth engagement strategy. People in my community want to give all our young people better options to stay connected to their learning and positive activities. It’s the opposite of what the Opposition are currently doing locally. We see them seeking to inflame community tensions about gang activity in the North Shore, opportunistically jumping on the recent gang incidents that we experienced but offering little on the ground.

Because of the investments made in Budget 2022, we know that Government agencies are able to partner with us as we develop local solutions for our local young people. For instance, I’m speaking of the increase in community policing on the North Shore. We’ve added 116 extra police on the beat in the Waitematā district since 2017, and just this month a new dedicated community policing team has been established in the area of the Kaipātiki, with extra community constables and a new sergeant position as well—services that were cut under the National Government in the Beach Haven area, closing our Beach Haven station. But Budget 2022 also invests $94 million in Police tackling gangs across our country and organised crime, and $114 million to respond to family and sexual violence. Again, these are the issues that our community on the North Shore wants to get on top of.

I’m also particularly pleased to see the focus on truancy and attendance management in the Budget. We all know that young people struggled with their learning during COVID lockdowns, especially so in Tāmaki-makau-rau Auckland at the end of last year. The Opposition decimated our truancy services on the North Shore, and I’m a big supporter of ensuring that truancy services are back in schools again, working with our whānau and building relationships across the community to get our young people engaged with learning again, attending school, and supporting community organisations to work in this space too.

The funding increase for He Poutama Rangatahi means that the Kaipātiki Community Facilities Trust will now deliver the programme on the North Shore. It targets 15- to 24-year-olds at risk of long-term unemployment, providing individualised support to connect to training and employment. Extra funding for trades training in the Budget will support more of our young people into apprenticeships, and local employers tell me how badly they need trained staff across all sectors. These initiatives, more community policing, properly tackling gangs, and focusing on young people reengaging in their learning, trades training—these were identified by our community leaders when we came together in Beach Haven.

We want local solutions that meet our local needs and secure our future. Budget 2022 delivers the resources we need to achieve this, and I look forward to seeing this impact on the North Shore of Auckland. Happy Matariki.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A pleasure to take this call in a general debate. I was interested to hear the Leader of the Opposition’s speech, and also interested to learn that he’s going to go overseas to “nick and steal” some policies, I think, was his quote. I’m not sure if he finished the sentence with “because I’ve got no ideas of my own and neither does my party”, but that’s pretty much the inference that we can take from there. I mean, what are the National Party’s ideas at the moment?

💬 Shanan Halbert: What are they?

Well, good question. Tax cuts, or ban gang patches? I mean, I love that “ban gang patches”—as if by taking a label off someone, you’re going to change their behaviour. Of course, Michael Laws tried that in Whanganui. What happened there? Absolutely nothing. He was embarrassed when he got told it was unconstitutional to do so, and even Chester Borrows, that decent former National MP, said, “Well, that won’t have any effect”—negligible effect.

Now, we’ve got an entirely different approach, which is to look at the drivers of crime, not just the label on someone’s back—a much better idea. Look, it’ll be good for the Leader of the Opposition to go overseas and talk to his compatriots like Boris Johnson see if he’s got any ideas that he can steal from him, perhaps. But what he will find out is that New Zealand is seen as a leading light in terms of its economic response to COVID and that our Prime Minister is seen as a fantastic example of good, strong, compassionate leadership, and of course, pretty much at the same time, we will have the Prime Minister and the trade Minister overseas doing the real work, the real mahi, and negotiating free-trade agreements.

We’ve seen recently introduced the UK free-trade deal legislation, a great leap forward for us in these tough times of constrained supply lines and difficult international relationships but building a really strong relationship with our old partner, the UK, and, of course, the EU—a huge trading bloc that we’re looking to get across the line. An excellent free-trade agreement, and I’m very excited about the work that’s going to go on over there. That’s what we’re doing now: reopening New Zealand to trade. But also it’s not only our outgoing trade but we’re welcoming in people from around the world with the removal of pre-departure testing and everything else we’re doing.

We’re welcoming people to places like the North Shore—a great little town. It’s not quite the Christchurch and Canterbury that we should be welcoming people to, but isn’t it going to be fantastic that we’re going to get tourists here for the ski season? Canterbury has some great locations up on the slopes there. Get down to Tekapō, the dark skies area of Canterbury there, and the Mackenzie Country—see Matariki in all of its glory. That’s what we want to see, not the kind of idea that the National Party’s coming up with, which is, basically, to oppose the kind of steps that this Government’s doing to ease the cost of living issues.

What does the National Party say about the cost of living payment? “Don’t do it.” Here we are trying to help out the most struggling New Zealanders, helping them out whilst we know that there is a cost of living crisis, so what so they say? “Don’t do it.” And what do they say when we suggest raising the minimum wage for the people on the lowest wages?

💬 Glen Bennett: “Don’t do it.”

Not only do they say, “Don’t do it”, Mr Bennett; they say, “No, give some tax cuts to those that need it least. Give some tax cuts to my mates. Let’s give $1.50 a week or $2.50 a week to those on the minimum wage, and let’s give thousands of dollars to those on the highest wages.” That’s the quality of the ideas that we’ve got from the National Party, and do you know what? They’re not new. They’re just the old National Party ideas. The old ideas, recycled again. They’re not even as good as Bill English’s ideas—no, not at all.

So they’ve got inconsistent positions. They don’t even agree amongst themselves. Nicola Willis, to her credit, said, “Oh, we don’t necessarily disagree with a raise in the minimum wage.”, whereas Simon Bridges said the opposite, and the leader is stuck betwixt and between.

Of course, what do they say about Matariki? Look, I’m so excited about the coming together of New Zealanders for this fantastic celebration: looking backwards, looking forwards, rebirth. Well, what do they say? “It’s another public holiday.”—the Grinch. “No, no, we don’t need one of those. We don’t need to recognise our nationhood.”

Well, I’m happy and proud to be part of a Government that’s recognising our nationhood and opening up New Zealand all over again. Fantastic!

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.