General Debate

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

💬 SPEAKER: I call the honourable—Christopher Luxon.

Honourable—I like the sound of that, Mr Speaker. Yeah.

You might have heard that I am a big fan of LunchMoney Lewis. I know his song “Bills”, and his song “Bills” is speaking to New Zealanders up and down this country right now. I promise you, Mr Speaker—and I also promise Mr LunchMoney—that I won’t sing the song again, because it wasn’t the strongest rendition; I’ll say that. But, you know, when he says, “I got bills I gotta pay. I got mouths I gotta feed. I’m going to work, work, work every day”, Kiwis up and down this country really know what he’s talking about. He is speaking to them. But, sadly, this is a Government that is not speaking to them, or not understanding where they’re at, at all. Because if they had been thinking about them, they wouldn’t have introduced a KiwiSaver tax last night, and then they wouldn’t have withdrawn it this morning—as LunchMoney would say, he would love anything that’s gone by lunchtime, so well done.

Here’s the deal: we have a Government that is so honestly the political equivalent of The Office, we only have to look at the last 24 hours to imagine what shenanigans have gone on behind the scenes to get to this fantastic decision today. It has demonstrated, yet again, that it is so completely, utterly out of touch with everyday working New Zealanders and where they’re at, and it’s just stopped listening to them.

Last night, I had this great Facebook comment from Jessica from Rotorua, and she said, “When does it end with the tax? No wonder the working middle class can’t get ahead.” And today, what happened? Jessica and many Kiwis like her, they woke up and they worked out the Government’s busy trying to fleece them out of their hard-earned cash yet again. And she’s right, because, you know, think about it: we’ve had a car tax, we’ve got a fuel tax, we’ve got a jobs tax, we’ve got a tenant tax, and now we’ve got this KiwiSaver tax that was on/off, on/off, now off again, and everyday Kiwis just can’t get ahead.

Let me tell you what they’re going to keep doing: they’re going to keep dreaming up cunning new taxes. Because you can just see David Parker talking to Grant Robertson, saying, “I’ve got a new cunning plan. So cunning you can put a tail on it and call it a weasel.” You can see it. You can just imagine the conversation as they beaver away at lots of new ideas about how they can get even more taxes. And the bottom line is they have to do that, right? They have to do it because they’re so addicted to spending. They love their spending and they’ve spent so much, and yet they’ve also achieved so very, very little. I think they’ve developed a very perverse and unique skill: this Government is uniquely able to spend more money—in fact, $51 billion more than five years ago—and at the same time hire more people—14,000 more bureaucrats here in central Wellington—and at the same time they’ve got worse outcomes in every single portfolio across the House. I think we’ll just go through a few. I could go through all of them, but let’s just take a few.

I think the economy’s a good place to start, because Grant Robertson’s here; he stayed around. We’ve got to give him credit for that; it’s fantastic. But you’ve just got to look at his delivery of the cost of living payment over the last 24 hours. That mismanagement just sums up the mismanagement of our economy. And you’ve got to remember, first and foremost, it isn’t his money, this cost of living payment that he’s designed. He’s got such disdain for taxpayers’ money that he actually makes this scheme up on the fly, under political pressure, against the advice of officials, and then he sprays the cash around to French backpackers and investment bankers in London and even dead people—yeah—and prisoners, I think, as well. The Auditor-General then slaps him down very publicly, like we’ve never seen before, saying, “Hey, listen, not a good use of public money.” And you think: can’t you just apologise to the New Zealand people and say, “Maybe I kind of got that one wrong, really sorry about that.”? Maybe you could tell us how many ineligible people actually got it—would be quite useful. I’ve got to tell you, it wouldn’t have happened under Nicola Willis’ watch. But that’s what it is.

Let’s look at health. Shall we look at health? That’s another good one, because every single health outcome has gone backwards under this Government—every single one. People are now spending entire days waiting for the emergency department, just to see somebody. The numbers of people waiting for surgical weight loss have actually doubled. You’ve gone from 1,000 to 36,000 Kiwis waiting more than four months to see their first specialists. And we’re actually now short 4,000 nurses, 1,500 GPs, 1,500 specialists. It’s amazing! These guys cannot deliver any outcomes whatsoever. And their answer is: Wellington knows best, let’s build bureaucracy, let’s not invest in the front-line services—let’s build more bureaucracy. What we need is a real doctor running health, not a spin doctor.

So I could go on, and I would love to go on, but what I will say to you is that we fundamentally now have a Government where—we know the drill—they are spending so much money, so they need to keep working away and beavering away and coming up with cunning new taxes because they’re so addicted to spending. They’ll talk about openness and transparency, but they don’t deliver it. Here we see a massive, chronic U-turn from this Government around a KiwiSaver tax, and long may the U-turns keep coming, because there’s a lot more taxes to unwind from here.

Many MPs will be familiar with the game that the press gallery like to play in Parliament, called “the rule in, rule out game”. There’s an issue of the day and you’re asked whether or not you’re going to rule it in or rule it out. Sometimes it’s quite a difficult game to play—you might not have made your final decision on a very complex policy issue—but Christopher Luxon got asked the very easiest rule in, rule out question of all time: would he work with Brian Tamaki?

Now, Mr Luxon couldn’t answer that question. The question I’ve got for Mr Luxon is: did he not take the clue of the so-called people’s court that took place outside Parliament, where Mr Luxon, among other people, was convicted of crimes against humanity? But apparently, no. Now, this question was so easy, David Seymour got it right—that’s how easy the question was. But no, Christopher Luxon ploughed on, he doubled down, he said he wouldn’t rule it out—he wouldn’t rule it out. All that does is tell you just how out of touch and out of his depth Christopher Luxon is. Because if it’s giving tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders, if it’s his stance on abortion, if it’s the cuts to public service—all of those things put him out of touch. But his response to that question shows just how his political inexperience is affecting him and the National Party.

So now we’re left with the prospect that, if in the unlikely event National were to get into Government, Brian Tamaki would be there, and he would have to decide what portfolio to give Brian Tamaki. Now, this would be a tough question: would a self-styled apostle accept deputy leader? Would they do that? Or would he offer him something that he has experience of, like Minister of Courts, for example? Or would he put him in charge of finance, given his experience in tithing? But no, I think I know exactly the role that Christopher Luxon would end up giving to Brian Tamaki, and that is the role of Minister with responsibility for the Earthquake Commission.

Now, this might surprise one or two people, but I want take you back to 2016, where Brian Tamaki, in talking about homosexuality, said, I quote, “No other sin in the whole Bible has any connection to earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions,”. That’s who Christopher Luxon wants to work with. That’s who Christopher Luxon wants to bring inside his Cabinet. I think, on this side of the House, we know exactly what that means: Mr Luxon will do anything whatsoever, he’ll compromise any value, he doesn’t care. Once again, we see the impact of his political inexperience.

Now, everybody in the House knows that I enjoy taking the mickey out of a National Party leader that makes a colossal cock-up like this, who shows their inexperience. But I actually want to say something serious to Mr Luxon: doing what he has done gives legitimacy to the most extreme views in our community. Doing what Mr Luxon has done gives confidence to those who have threatened and harassed our health care workers, our journalists, many politicians in this House, and citizens around New Zealand. What Mr Luxon has done, by failing to rule out Brian Tamaki, undermines the inclusive and accepting society that I would have hoped he would have been part of.

Now, it’s probably in the Labour Party’s interest for Christopher Luxon to go on deciding that he does not want to rule out Brian Tamaki. I am pleading with Mr Luxon to do the right thing. Do not say to young, gay New Zealanders that they don’t matter. Do not say to the women of New Zealand that they don’t have a place in leadership. Because, Mr Luxon, you will be judged by the company you keep. You have a chance and you have an opportunity to stand up for New Zealanders’ values. Do the right thing, Mr Luxon, rule out working with Brian Tamaki, or else New Zealanders will continue to believe you stand for extremism, you stand for bigotry. Rule out Brian Tamaki.

He’ll have to do a lot better than that, because the country’s going backwards at a rate of knots, and all the Minister of Finance wants to do is platform the rantings of a crazy pastor who no one wants to engage with. Why does he want to do that? Because this is Labour’s day of shame—this is their day of shame.

Look at them over there: shame-faced, caught red-handed with their hands in New Zealanders’ KiwiSaver accounts. Look at them averting their eyes, lowering their heads—oh, “Napoleon” is looking—because they are ashamed of what their finance Minister tried to do. He, in concert with the Minister of Revenue, thought, “You know what? I’m addicted to spending. I can’t make the books balance anymore, so where am I going to get the cash? I’ve run out of my own money, so I’m going to go after New Zealanders’ KiwiSaver.” And what they did: they cooked up a tax, they put it through the Cabinet, they agreed to it, and they thought, “You know what? Let’s sneak it through. We don’t need to tell anyone we’re doing it.” So they put out the press release, but did they talk about the extra tax? Did they talk about the $225 million they wanted to take? Did they talk about the $100 billion they wanted to wipe from New Zealanders’ KiwiSaver funds? No, because those sneaky members of Parliament thought they could get this one past New Zealanders. They thought they could hoodwink them, but we caught them red-handed.

The Minister of Finance can rant and rave, but none of it will hide the skid marks from the massive U-turn that was executed at lunchtime. None of it will hide the stain of distrust that will remain in this Government, because New Zealanders know that they tried to sneak through a new tax. Because first—that’s right—they came for New Zealanders’ back pockets—the inflation, the robber that it is, eating holes in those back pockets, forcing New Zealanders to pay more tax—but they weren’t satisfied with that. Then they came for New Zealanders’ petrol: they added a tax to that. Then they came for their utes, and they added a tax to that. But such was the insatiable appetite for yet more wasteful spending that they came after your savings, too. This is a Government, bear in mind, that campaigned on “no new taxes”, but, in reality, the Minister of Revenue has a special unit of bureaucrats burrowing away right now in the Piketty unit, dreaming up yet new ways to fleece New Zealanders.

I will say to you: National will not abide it. We will not let them sneak these taxes through; we will oppose them, we will find them out, and we will stop this happening. We will not allow a midnight assault on your savings, a mounting of the guard.

Now, if the Minister of Finance thinks that what New Zealanders are talking about is the rantings of a pastor, I want to give him this email that was sent to the Prime Minister, and it was sent to me as well. This is from a Labour voter; her name’s Rachel. She said, “I am sick of working hard, paying taxes, trying to make a safe and secure future for my family, just to get constantly slapped in the face by you, the Government.” That is exactly what this Government is doing.

New Zealanders are faced with a cost of living crisis. Their wages have gone backwards in real terms. They have less money to spend on their families today than they did when that Government was elected. And what is this Government doing? Are they trying to increase the growth of this economy? Are they trying to raise incomes? No. This Government is obsessed with more spending.

National says that it is time that they learnt their lessons. The Auditor-General agrees with us, by the way. The Auditor-General wrote to us and said that this is a Government that has failed the test of good stewardship of public money, that they did not show due care in the way they designed and implemented the cost of living payment—payments paid for by Rachel and other hard-working taxpayers, that went to French backpackers, foreign investors, and London backpackers. Will they apologise? Will they even find out how many payments were made and how much money was wasted? No, because they have contempt for the New Zealand taxpayers they are supposed to serve. Let’s vote them out.

That was a lot of humbug, a lot of poppycock, coming from that member there, Nicola Willis. But the one thing I want to say about Nicola Willis is she sounds genuine—a lot more genuine than Chris Luxon.

I’ve listened to Chris Luxon a number of times. I said to him, he would be a great leader, at the start. But you know, after listening to him for the last six or so months, he reminds me of the crown-of-thorns starfish. This is a starfish that secretes waste from all thorns. And that’s what he’s like. You don’t know what you believe about the man. You know, he cries foul about the poverty of people here, but he doesn’t know what it’s like. He’s not made any sacrifices. He sounds more like a John Key puppet, in my view. I mean, he said the other day on social media that he was on one part of the country when he was sunbathing in the other part of the party. This is a man wanting to be the leader of this nation. I’d say bring back Judith Collins. At least you knew where she stood. Or bring back Mark Mitchell. At least Mark has some sympathy for working-class communities out there. But that man there has no, nada, nada whatsoever.

Look, if we’re serious on sides about the cost of living, then let’s acknowledge that there are people who are in need of help and there is no easy fix to the cost of living. But we, as a Government, continue to move forward. I announced not too long ago in this House here that in terms of Pacific peoples, we had over 1,000 people who have benefited from Tupu Aotearoa and have gotten jobs—high-value, high-paying jobs. That is the solution. Not the punitive proposals that they’re saying—to condemn, to blame—but more encouraging and providing positive pathways: 1,400 young Pacific not in education, employment, and training have gotten positive pathways. But the package of the cost of living—

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: How many?

Hush up, Mr Brownlee. Listen and you might learn something. Hush up, Mr Brownlee. You might learn something about people who are striving to get ahead, and this is the Government that is investing.

Not too long ago, nine long years of the John Key Government, what did they do? They gutted the public sector. They gutted the public sector. And they call themselves sympathisers of working-class people. That is not the case; that is definitely not the case.

So short-term cost of living payments are up, and we—the other day, a young, involved nurse said to me, “Thank you very much, Jacinda and your Government,” for the money that they got to top up during the winter. She earns less than $70,000. Now, here’s the thing: we are supporting the needs of the working communities out there. But we shouldn’t have to be subsiding this long term—because, in essence, that’s what we’re doing: we’re subsidising the need. But when the profits are made, who gets to keep that in their pockets? And that’s that lot here [points to Opposition benches] that continue to champion those inequities, because that’s a system that allows for inequity to be maintained.

I’ve had, the other day, an older man who is retired say to me, “Pass on to your Prime Minister our gratitude for the transport subsidies.” Because they’re able, now, to travel: visit grandkids from South Auckland to West Auckland, without having to worry about the out of pocket.

So when this lot here are crying foul all the time, that just shows how insensitive they are and that every time they’re talking about understanding the needs of working communities, they don’t know—[pauses]—waste—I’m trying to think in my head about the proper word to say on that one there.

But I’d say this is the Government that will continue to move forward in supporting the community and governing for all peoples, making sure that we’re addressing the need—and there are many needs of this community. But we’re not shying away from that: housing, health, education, all of that. That’s not what you can say about that lot when they were in Government last.

And what we know of the kind of colour that National always does is, once they’re in, they gut it. You cannot say, on the one hand, that you’ll give people tax cuts and on the other hand continue to provide social services for needs out there. That just cannot be done.

How I did not miss being in this space, listening to the petty exchanges, finger pointing, and energy that goes in—people just looking at each other instead of looking at the communities that we are supposed to serve—the energy that we should be putting in serving the communities that actually have been doing it the toughest over the past few years, whether it has been through the inequality crisis that has actually been here for successive Governments, whether it has been the pandemic, or now the inflationary pressures that are seeing more families struggling to make ends meet. We should be paying attention to the fact that people all around the motu are doing their best to support each other and fill in the gaps where successive Governments have failed.

Over the past month, we have seen how, on the one hand, the National Party is hell keen to punish the people who are doing it the toughest by introducing punitive benefit sanctions, when all that they would do is put more people into hardship, starve people out so that they get any job no matter how unsuitable, despite overwhelming evidence that such an approach does not help to reduce unemployment. The National Party is running policy on vibes to punish people, and the Labour members were rightfully critical of this approach and calling out the potential of the National Party putting in place policies that would see disabled people starved out so that they could be forced into work. I congratulate the members for their energy in calling out National, but they should be looking at their own policies as well and the fact that we have a sanctions regime that is still run on vibes, that is not run on evidence, and that is punishing people.

I’ve heard over the past few weeks, when I’ve questioned Ministers on this issue, that they have made sure to introduce some checks so that fewer people are sanctioned and, therefore, we’re starving out fewer people, but one sanction is one too many, particularly when there is no empirical evidence of a New Zealand welfare regime that includes sanctions supporting people into employment. All we’ve seen is a handful of overseas examples where maybe the sanctions regime helped, but all we know is that people are being put into hardship. I encourage all MPs in the House to talk to people on the benefit about their experiences with Work and Income, the threat that people are facing when it comes to that pressure of going to their appointments and knowing that, if they don’t show up, they may have their benefit cut off. But we forget that, actually, this measure does not support our communities. Starving people out will not encourage them to show up at Work and Income to engage in services to see how they can meet their aspirations.

We know that the Government’s own advisory group, which gave substantive recommendations on how to overhaul the welfare system, was unequivocal that financial sanctions do not work and that, instead, we should be putting in place a system on mutual expectations. At no point was the report actually saying that what we should be doing is cutting people’s incomes as a way to address the lack of trust that people may be having with our welfare system. So I hope that our Labour members in this House channel the critical energy they have for the National Party with their sanctions regime to look at their own policy, to finally introduce policies that support people and meet their aspirations, because we cannot rely on the status quo. We cannot rely on regulations that simply see a reduction in sanctions, because if the National Party gets back in, what we do know is that if their legislation hasn’t changed, what they’ll do is they’ll ramp up those sanctions, they’ll ramp up that punitive approach.

We have an opportunity right now, and Labour has an opportunity right now, with the mandate that they have got, to put an end to benefit sanctions once and for all, to support the communities who have been doing the mahi to support each other during the pandemic and recognise the diversity of contributions that they make, because employment isn’t the only contribution that people are making right now. People are doing volunteering, they’re doing care-giving, and our welfare system continues to not recognise those contributions as meaningful and as worthy of a life with dignity. I yearn for a system that recognises the diversity of contributions that people bring and that does not have a narrow approach of pushing people into low-paid work. Instead, I hope that our employment schemes such as Mana in Mahi support people into employment that pays at least the living wage. Everyone deserves a livable income, a warm house to live in, and the guarantee that they’ll be supported by Government into employment that meets their aspirations.

So we’ll continue putting pressure on Labour to own up to the values they showed when they were criticising National and to put an end to the sanctions regime once and for all.

This debate started with Mr LunchMoney: “I’ve got mouths I’ve got to feed. I’ve got bills I’ve got to pay. It’s work, work, work every day.” On this side of the House we take those lyrics to heart, and as a hard-working Government we do something about the mouths that people have to feed and the bills they’ve got to pay. So exactly what are we doing about the mouths that people have to feed? We’ve got lunches in schools, literally putting food into the mouths of children. I visited Glenavon School in my electorate last week and had a bit of a yarn with the principal. They get the lunches in schools there. The principal there, John Hunte, said it was fantastic. It worked brilliantly. The kids got fed. They came to school, they were happy, and they were enjoying themselves at school. And it was helping the parents’ pockets. So that’s the first thing we’ve done in terms of schools.

Another thing we’ve done in schools to help those daily physical needs is we’ve got period products at schools—free period products for girls and young women at school. That’s a cost that women between the ages of about 10 and 56, 57, or 58 have to bear every month—the cost of products so that they can manage their periods. From time to time, it keeps girls out of school because their families simply cannot afford to pay for period products. What have we done as a hard-working Government? We have paid for free period products in schools so that girls can get their education, and we’ve relieved a cost on the families.

While we’re still talking about schools, there’s the schools donations package we have. We made sure that if schools went for voluntary donations, then we would put money into schools—$150 per student. Again, it’s something that directly saves costs from parents’ pockets and puts money where it was needed—into the schools.

In terms of “bills I’ve got to pay”, that’s exactly what the cost of living payment is about. It’s an extra bit of money to help people pay their bills. We know that times are tough out there, so what are we doing? We’re giving them a little bit extra to help them through these tough winter months. It’s the same thing with the winter energy payment. It’s an extra bit of money to ensure that people can pay their energy bills in winter and stay warm. All these things are helping people to feed the mouths they’ve got to feed and to pay the bills they’ve got to pay.

When fuel prices were rocketing up recently, we looked at the impact on families. We looked at the impact on working people, and we said we needed to help. So we cut the fuel excise. We knew that energy prices were going up because of the war in Ukraine, because of supply chain issues. We decided to help people through the peak of it. Energy prices are dropping now, and that helps a little bit, but in the meantime we’ve had the cut to the fuel excise. Alongside that we’ve had half-price public transport, making it cheaper and easier for workers to get to work, for kids to get to school, and for people to get about the towns they live in. So we’ve put in place all these measures that have helped people’s back pockets.

All those things, we are doing. Yet all the time that we try to help New Zealanders, what do we hear from the Opposition? Nothing but tax cuts and scaremongering around taxation. They complain that we are addicted to spending, addicted to spending, addicted to spending—I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that. It is their one line. But let’s talk about what taxation actually pays for. I refer the members of the Opposition to page 21 of the Inland Revenue Department’s annual report—the 2021 annual report; the 2022 report will be out soon. It tells us there what we spend our money on. We spend $24 billion a year on health, keeping New Zealanders healthy. We spend $16.6 million a year on New Zealand super, $16.3 billion on education. We spend $6 billion on transport and communication.

I challenge the Opposition, every time they say they want tax cuts, to tell us which services they would cut. Tell us which New Zealanders will have to do without health. Tell us which New Zealanders will have to do without education. Tell us which New Zealanders will have to do without welfare. That is the corollary of tax cuts, and it’s chicken-hearted to scream for tax cuts but not say where they will cut services. Be honest, face up to the reality of what the Opposition is prescribing for New Zealand: austerity, nastiness, and people in trouble. That is why I am proudly part of this Government.

Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker. This is a Government that is falling apart. Yesterday, we had introduced to the House a KiwiSaver tax bill, and I said to the team when we found out about it, I said, “I reckon we’ll wait till Thursday and they’ll do a U-turn. This is so crazy and so dumb, that—after introducing a ute tax and a petrol tax and a tenant tax and a capital gains tax, and all the other taxes that Labour’s introduced—there’s no way that this Government would slap a $100 billion tax on Kiwis at a time that KiwiSaver accounts are doing it a bit tough.” I said, “There’s no way. It is crazy. I’ll give it until Thursday.”

I was wrong, because where are we? Wednesday—gone by lunchtime. The KiwiSaver tax? “Gone-burger”. At 1.15: “We’ve just put out a press release. Oh, we didn’t consult properly.” Even though it’s been consulted on for literally months, the Government’s invented a reason. And we know why: it’s because 20,000 people—and counting all the time—have signed National’s petition, because Kiwis are sick of being fleeced by this Government and they said, “No, enough is enough.” So a humiliating U-turn by this Government.

And what have they got? Grant Robertson spent five minutes of a general debate speech in a personalised attack on the leader of the National Party. And then the second speaker in the general debate, William Sio, spent five minutes talking about Christopher Luxon. He’s in their heads—he is in their heads—and they know that the National Party is back and they know that the National Party was not going to stand up for this addiction to spending that is the raison d’être of this Government. The National Party is standing against Labour’s big-spending, addicted-to-spending agenda.

As Nicola Willis said in her contribution, it shows a real contempt for taxpayers. Twice in the last two weeks have we seen a contempt for taxpayers. Once with the KiwiSaver tax, the $100 billion secretive, stealthy tax on New Zealanders’ KiwiSaver accounts. And then the second display of contempt for New Zealanders was the cost of living payment. This is something that has to be seen to be believed: money that is being sprayed around the world. If you thought KiwiBuild was bad, “KiwiSpray” is even worse: money that is sprayed around the world, to French backpackers who were here 15 years ago who’d forgotten they even picked fruit over summer in Cromwell, to wealthy investment bankers in London. And, look, some of my best friends are investment bankers in London. I’m telling you now: they don’t need $116 paid into their New Zealand bank account; they’re doing quite all right, thank you very much. And, of course, dead people.

So this shows contempt for taxpayers. Have we seen an apology? No. Have we seen any admission of failure or fault? No. Have we seen any attempt from the Government to find out exactly who is and who isn’t getting this “KiwiSpray” payment? No, absolutely not. All we see is contempt and disdain for hard-working New Zealanders.

But while we’re talking about U-turns, we welcome the Government’s KiwiSaver tax U-turn. I’m surprised it happened within the space of 24 hours, but there’s a few other U-turns we need. I think the Prime Minister will be regretting her decision to make Chris Hipkins the new police Minister, or new-ish police Minister. We should be doing a U-turn on that, because we’ve learnt that ram raids are up 500 percent, and I note that the police Minister didn’t refute the premise of that question, as Kiri Allan, the justice Minister, did this morning. But then we had the extraordinary claim from the police Minister today that he’s been too busy to meet with victims of ram raids, of which there were five overnight in Hamilton on Monday night, by the way. He’s been too busy. Why? Oh, because he’s been reading his paperwork and “visiting important stakeholders”. Well, what is a more important stakeholder for the police Minister than retailers who have been the victims of crime like ram raids? There is no more important stakeholder for the police Minister, and it shows contempt. So let’s do a U-turn on that.

Let’s do a U-turn on wasteful and inefficient and incompetent Government spending. This Government is fiscally incontinent. They’ve never seen a tax they don’t want to implement and they’ve never seen a Government programme they don’t want to spend more money on. Let’s do a U-turn on the cost of living payment, but, more importantly, let’s do a U-turn on this tired, hopeless, and useless Government, and kick them out of office as soon as we can.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Two weeks ago, my electorate of Nelson and the wider Te Tau Ihu top of the South region was hit by devastating floods. Initially, the weather was forecast to hit Golden Bay and Westport. What happened next was an incredibly quick change in the weather and the emergence of an atmospheric river that hovered over Nelson CBD and caused three separate rain events. A number of homes were flooded, while more properties were affected by landslips, due to close to one metre of rain falling above the Maitai River; 500 homes were evacuated, many with only minutes to spare. There were many heroic rescues by our first responders, of people and of pets. Vast areas of Nelson lost power, while the main water pipe that supplies drinking water to Nelson was badly damaged. Despite there being water, water everywhere, for some people there was not a drop to drink.

Across the top of the South we have suffered hundreds of landslips. Many, many roads are out of action, and the clean-up and fixing of our roads will take a number of months, even years. I am delighted, today, that Waka Kotahi have opened State Highway 6 between Nelson and Blenheim. My huge thanks to Waka Kotahi for working around the clock to get this key link in our transport network open again for businesses and people to travel.

While the sun has now come out, the situation in Nelson and across the top of the South remains serious. Our beautiful city was built on and around hillsides, some of which are now saturated and at risk of further slippage, threatening homes and infrastructure. Behind the sunshine lie a number of homes that had been red- and yellow-stickered and a number of homeowners and residents who will be facing a long road of insurance claims and upheaval in their lives.

I want to put on record my thanks to all who were involved in the response and, now, the recovery from the impact of the floods in our region. Thank you to the civil defence staff and volunteers who staffed the emergency operations centre (EOC) day and night as a complex situation evolved over a number of days, requiring quick decision-making by the teams working through the night and under immense pressure. Particular thanks to those members of the EOC who were red- and yellow-stickered themselves but still came in to work every day to support their fellow community members. Special thanks to group controller Alec Louverdis; your quick thinking and decision to evacuate homes as a precaution saved our city from a worse disaster. Thank you to the city’s contractors, first responders, public servants, local iwi, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, urban search and rescue, local police, Defence Force staff, National Emergency Management Agency staff from across the motu, the Red Cross, Waka Kotahi, our local councils, and our health and welfare workers. Collectively you stepped up to support our people, as you always do.

Three and a half years ago our region suffered severely from the Pigeon Valley fires, causing devastation in the Tasman District. Our community stepped up then, and they’ve stepped up again now. It’s been heartening to see the community getting stuck in to support people who have lost everything, and in the ongoing recovery; the neighbours and volunteers who have helped with the clean-up and offered accommodation; the businesses offering free coffees and food; Murray and Wendy Leaning for always feeding people; Giving Aroha and Unite Church for housing our homeless whānau; the Student Volunteer Army for coming to Nelson and helping to coordinate our volunteers; the many people offering baking, food, and supplies; and those who’ve contributed to our mayoral fund to support people and businesses.

The recovery from this event will be a long one, and tough decisions will need to be made in the future about where we can and can’t build and where new homes and infrastructure go. I want to acknowledge our mayors Rachel Reese and Tim King, Ministers Kieran McAnulty and Damien O’Connor for their support for our region, and the Prime Minister for visiting and getting a good understanding of the situation on the ground. I also acknowledge neighbouring MP Stuart Smith and Marlborough mayor John Leggett, who are supporting their community as their roads are damaged from weather events again.

These events are becoming more common across New Zealand. It shows how important it is that we invest in decent infrastructure and that central government needs to work with local government on adaptation plans for the future. I know that our community and our region is a resourceful one, an innovative one, and we will get through this. My thanks again to everybody in Nelson and across Te Tau Ihu who are stepping up to support our recovery and the rebuild.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Four months ago, I spoke to the House about crime being out of control and no one would believe it, but, in the last four months, things have got worse—a lot worse. May: 50 ram raids; June: 37; July: 42. I hate to think what August is going to bring. But all of New Zealand knows how bad things have become in the last five years—except for the Labour Government. There’s also smash and grabs, assaults, burglaries, thefts of cars. You name it, every type of offence is increasing. The rhetoric often spouted—that crime, overall, is on the downward trend—is a fallacy, and everyone knows it.

I got an email just yesterday from a woman whose car was stolen. There’s CCTV footage and enough evidence to catch the offender, but she was told just to go to her insurance company because police won’t be following up. They simply don’t have time to do their jobs while dealing with a 40 percent increase in mental health call outs and huge increases in domestic violence incidents.

Just throwing money in their direction isn’t the answer. All Government agencies need to be working efficiently so we can allow police to do their core work, and we must fully support them. They haven’t felt supported in five years. The soft-on-crime ideology is a failure. Eighteen months ago, I attended a meeting of almost 40 business owners and dairy owners in Auckland. They were crying out for help then and told us that the Government just weren’t listening. Despite being invited, the absence of Labour, the Greens, and the Māori Party showed their priorities. Bollards would not be necessary now if action was taken earlier.

Unlike the current Government, ACT does put the victims of crime first, and, last week, we released our law and order policy, which addresses the causes of crime, offers alternatives, and, most importantly, looks after the victims—and I’d urge Labour to look at it. They liked our last one so much they stole a policy from it, but we don’t mind, and I’m really pleased for New Zealand that Labour now agree that we should take the politics out of policing, and police numbers should increase with population. It’s a great idea.

Here are just a couple of other policies I’d urge them to adopt as well. We need a review of the electronic bail rules. Using electronic bail as a means to reduce prison population is not only naive but dangerous. There are 6,000 offenders on ankle bracelets. Tampering with these bracelets has gone up from one per month in 2017 to 47 per month in 2021. There’s been a 75 percent increase in child sex offenders on electronic monitoring. Fifty-three of these offenders have tampered with their bracelet. These are people ACT doesn’t want on our streets. Labour is letting them out.

ACT will introduce infringement notices to young shoplifters and make them physically work to compensate for their offence, so that the consequences of a criminal action are felt immediately. Failure to pay will result in a youth aid referral and Oranga Tamariki involvement. This isn’t new. New Zealand has a world-class youth aid system, but they need to be resourced and staffed appropriately to make it work. Many times, I had young offenders cleaning police cars on a Saturday morning. Done properly, it works. Ninety-five percent of young people who enter the justice system for minor offences are not seen there again, and that’s a great statistic. But they have to have had a consequence. Making excuses for their behaviour doesn’t work. Young people want boundaries. I had a poster on my classroom wall for years, which read, “You are responsible for your actions no matter how you feel.”

Here’s another policy that works, for Labour to think about: ACT will bring back three-strikes for serious violent offences. There are 13,000 offenders on the first strike; just over 600 offenders on the second strike; and 24 of the worst violent and sexual offenders in New Zealand serving their third-strike sentence. The fact that Labour doesn’t understand how these numbers show that it actually works is quite bizarre. Every police officer I speak to wants three-strikes legislation. But we’d go further and bring in three strikes for burglary. To be a burglar, you’ve lost all empathy for your victims, and it must be treated more seriously. Most burglars are caught every 15 to 20 burglaries they commit. Get caught a third time, you serve the full sentence. That must be reassuring for the 289,000 victims of burglaries last year.

I’ll leave Labour with one more policy to think about: the Crown will pay the victims financial reparation, and the IRD will be tasked to get it off the offenders. There is $114 million is owed to victims, some getting paid 65c a week back, but, all too often, the victims are getting nothing. It’s time we got serious about looking after victims and stopped pandering to the offenders. We think these policies are a great start.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Tomorrow is 1 September, and it has been quite a hard winter for many people in Aotearoa New Zealand. We know it’s hard; we know whānau are struggling at the moment. Tomorrow marks 1 September, which is the day that the second payment will start to roll out to almost 2.1 million people. From tomorrow, whānau will be receiving $116 in their bank account, if they earn under $70,000 per person in their household—the second payment. When I asked those for feedback on the first payment, many said that they appreciated it, that they were able to use to it to put towards clothing for their children during winter, to be able to pay for those extra bills, and so I know that this payment will be welcomed by many, starting from tomorrow.

In terms of what this Government has been doing to alleviate the costs of living, because we know it’s hard for whānau at the moment: when we couple that with the reduction on the taxes for fuel for example—25c per litre—that has been in place since April this year, saving families many hundreds of dollars when they are filling up their cars at the petrol stations. In addition to that, we’ve had increases to Working for Families, to superannuation, to student allowance, and to main benefits—again, from 1 April, benefiting over a million people.

We have been doing significant work in the area of supermarkets to ensure that people are getting a fairer deal at the checkout. We have put in place the commissioner. We have ensured that we are able to have competition by stopping supermarkets from blocking their competitors. We have also looked at fair pricing for wholesale goods and that being passed on, for example. There is more work to do in that space, but I want to commend the Minister, who has been working hard to address one of those most significant areas where whānau are feeling the impacts of the cost of living, and that’s in our supermarkets.

We’ve also increased paid parental leave by over $40 per week. We’ve had the winter energy payment, which I know many people have benefited from—over a million New Zealanders benefit from the winter energy payment. That has got them through those extra costs of heating their house, to buy in wood, for example, and being able to turn on that heat pump so that they do not have to suffer in the cold months of winter.

We’ve also just celebrated two years of our free lunches in schools. We are providing over a million lunches to over 220,000 tamariki in 950 schools across Aotearoa. I have received direct feedback on the difference that that initiative alone makes for whānau, those with two children, those with four children—a significant cost to their families. We’re so proud of that initiative because we know that tamariki with full puku are more likely to get better learning outcomes, and so I’m proud that we are celebrating our second year of that initiative. One of the previous speakers referred to our free period products in schools, another initiative that I am extremely proud of. I know when we were advocating for this issue in Te Tai Tokerau, it is over $20 a month per person menstruating in the household. I had a father who I worked with, he had five daughters, so you know that those costs do add up quickly. So to be able to alleviate that and to ensure that there are no barriers to attendance—I am so proud of that work that we have been doing.

On top of that, we have had minimum wage increases since 2017, which is now an extra $218 per week. GP visits are cheaper, and free for all children under 14. And I want to mention, because we have a baby in the House this afternoon: our Best Start payment is also providing an extra $65 a week for parents of newborns. These are all the sorts of initiatives that Labour has introduced to try and alleviate the cost of living pressures that are on our whānau, not just this winter but in the last five years which we have had the privilege of being in Government: being able to make these Budget decisions, being able to set these policy initiatives to benefit a huge number of New Zealanders—over a million on those main benefits. And with the payment tomorrow, which will start hitting those bank accounts, up to another 2.1 million people will be benefiting from that. I couldn’t be more proud to stand on this side of the House with my colleagues, knowing that we are genuinely supporting Aotearoa New Zealand.

Well, what a day, what a change, and what a Government in disarray. You could just imagine what went on in caucus around about lunchtime, when everyone was sitting there at select committees and they got that memo from the Hon David Parker: “We’re going to repeal that bill that we just introduced yesterday, because we got it wrong. Oops!” You can imagine: “What are we going to talk about in the general debate? Let’s send out some notes to all the backbenchers who’ve got to stand up there today, and sort of say what a great Government it is.” Not one of them has mentioned the KiwiSaver tax blunder. It is a debacle.

Poor old Mr Parker! Poor old Mr Parker introduced the comprehensive bill—and we do them three times a year—and, as he said in question time, he has already removed it from the ballot. It is a shocker. The interesting thing is that the reason he claimed that he suddenly had a come-to-Jesus moment, if I can put it that way, is that, God, he’s had so many people, fund managers, come to him today and say, “Look, you’ve got to change it.” So one of the interesting things is—I wonder—who those are, because, for instance, the Financial Services Council have been harping on to officials, and I presume to the Minister himself, for weeks, months, to say that this is a bad piece of legislation. In fact, they described it as an overreach.

Then, today, Mr Parker talked about “It’s all about the banks. That’s why we’re turning it over, because they’re using a loophole.” Of course, he’s used that excuse once before, when he said that mum and dad investors, mum and dad homeowners who own a rental, are using a loophole because they’re using interest deductibility, even though it had been the part of the tax system that you should be able to deduct interest against accessible income and that had been the tenet of New Zealand tax law since time immemorial. He decided it was a loophole.

Again, lo and behold, today, suddenly he’s saying there’s another loophole. I would just say to Mr Parker, just for the record: the convention of paying GST on 10 percent of fees has been agreed between the IRD and every fund manager for the last 21 years. So it ain’t a little loophole that arose in the last five minutes.

Anyway, all of this from a Government that’s introduced the ute tax, the extended brightline tax, the tenant tax, the light rail tax, the regional fuel tax, raised income taxes, jobs tax, and, of course, the one that they’ve just stopped.

Of course, I heard all the talks today from members saying, “Boy, have we done a wonderful job. Well, we’ve introduced the cost of living payment. We’ve introduced the winter payment. We’ve done all these wonderful things.” But what these members do not understand is that the ordinary hard-working person in the street is now suffering just an insurmountable level of cost coming their way. Rent’s up, fuel’s up, food’s up, and it just keeps coming.

The other thing is that businesses are just swamped by a tsunami of stress and pressure as this Government just keeps socking it to our small businesses. Our business owners’ backs are up against a wall, and their mental health is also at risk. We don’t hear that from this Labour Government. It’s huge for our small-business owners and for the people that work in their business. What people want, what business owners want, and what people who work in those businesses want, is they want someone to have their back, look after them, think about them, allow them to get people from overseas to work in their business, and stop the added costs being rammed into them. All those big changes that keep coming: cost of labour, rising freight costs, supply line issues. And then the issue of crime: our 4,500 dairies, who are just continuously getting assaulted every day.

It is tough, and all this Government wants to do is impose more costs like the fair pay agreements, which are not fair at all; impose a new workers’ insurance scheme. The confidence of small-business owners has slumped. We need a change because, really, small-business owners are overworked, overwhelmed, and over Labour.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A couple of years ago on New Year’s Day, I woke up to find the sky glowing orange and there was a smell of smoke in the air, and it was the impact of the Australian bushfires coming across the Tasman. A couple of months later, we found ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic, and I think back then it would have been hard to think—fast-forwarding for two more years—that we’d find ourselves with the war in the Ukraine and the devastating impact that that’s had on communities there. But we’re also seeing some of the impacts of the heatwaves happening in Europe and looking at the artefacts that are now rising out of the rivers because there’s been no rain in the heat. I think that all of those things seem really, really far away to us here in New Zealand, and yet all of them are having their impacts here with, basically, the rising cost of living, with fuel prices and food prices and the impact that it’s having on families’ budgets. So I’m really pleased to be part of a Government that’s taking steps to help people through.

I think about some of those immediate measures that we’ve put in place in the last little while. Fuel: filling up the petrol tank is a huge cost for many families. So we’re seeing the cuts to fuel excise tax and to road-user charges but also the half-price public transport, which has made a real difference in terms of people commuting and getting to work.

Looking at the cost of living payments that have been coming into people’s bank accounts and just making that small difference so that people can get ahead, I also think back to the situation we would have found ourselves in if we hadn’t been putting in those things that we’ve put in place over the last five years to help those on lower and middle incomes. Prior to coming into Parliament, my role was around advocacy for children’s health and child poverty, and one of the things that we learnt was that it wasn’t one single policy measure that meant that we had the higher child poverty rates that we had, but it was a series of decisions made over many, many years, with each one having a cumulative effect, taking that little bit away from families and their ability to make ends meet.

Looking back to when we first came into this House as a Government back in 2017, I was so proud to be sitting in the House just before Christmas that year when we put in place the Families Package, when we increased Working for Families. But we also introduced the winter energy payment so that families could afford to turn on the heater during the winter, for those on superannuation and those relying on a benefit.

But it’s also really exciting. We’ve got a baby in the House today, but seeing the Best Start payment—back then, it was $60 a week for newborn babies in the first year, going through to the first three years for those on lower to middle incomes, and that’s been increased to $65. So we’re going to have families being able to have that little bit of extra support so that they can make those choices about whether they can stay home and care for their children in their early, formative years, or whether they want to go out to work.

That’s where, again, we extended paid parental leave and provided that extra support for families so they’ve got those choices. But then, as children grow up, we were also thinking about the costs that come in there, and so what we’ve got is we’ve got the free school lunches. I know that in our community we’ve got many schools benefiting from those, with many parents now being able to send their child to school knowing that they’re going to get a healthy lunch. But also period products: this is a very big expense for many in their teenage years—again, being able to know that you can turn up to school and those things will be provided.

Low-cost doctors visits: again, back when we first came into Government, there was a real issue with the affordability of primary care. So what we’ve done there is make sure that those on community service cards have low-cost access to GPs, because many of those things that you put off and put off end up with potentially a hospital admission, whereas you can see your GP early if you’re not worried about that cost.

The other thing that I think was really significant was the increases we’ve made to benefits. This is something that underpins some of our historical trends in child poverty rates. We saw these big benefit cuts back in the early 1990s, so it’s wonderful to be seeing the increases that we’ve had to benefits—particularly even this year, when they’ve gone up significantly—and also just the rises in superannuation as well that came in this year alongside those, and also indexing benefits to the average wage so that families relying on benefits don’t fall further and further behind. We’re also increasing the minimum wage significantly, so that gap between the minimum wage and the living wage has now narrowed significantly.

So there are a lot of things we’ve done there which mean that as we move through these cost of living increases, we’ve got families that are much better prepared because of all those things that we’ve put in place over the last five years. The more recent things are really great as responses for now, but the things that we’ve put in place over the past five years will make a real difference moving forward. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.